The Pew Environmental Health Commission has a simple but powerful prescription focus on preventing disease and making Americans healthier. If we are to succeed in making the 21st century a time of progress and good health, we must build an American public health defense that will prevent chronic disease, not just treat its symptoms. Federal, state and local health departments must be equal partners in this venture, but the federal government must lead. About 100 million Americans, more than a third of the population, suffer from some form of chronic disease. And these numbers are rising.
Many chronic conditions are also on the rise.
We now have an asthma epidemic with no signs of slowing. Environmental factors offer the best prevention and cost saving opportunities. Take, for example, the case of Brownsville, Texas. In 1991, six babies along the Texas-Mexico border were born with a condition known as a neural tube defect, resulting in all or part of their brains missing. Community concerns prompted state and federal researchers to launch investigations into possible genetic and environmental triggers of this defect.