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. But the effort was initially stymied by the lack of a birth defects registry that could have assisted health officials and citizens to more quickly understand this tragedy. The State of Texas launched an aggressive statewide program to monitor birth defects.