2021 County Environmental Health Profiles Released!

The Wisconsin Environmental Public Health Tracking Program is excited to announce the release of the 2021 County Environmental Health Profiles! 

These profiles provide a county-level snapshot of the data available on the Tracking data portal. Through these profiles, communities can learn more about environmental health-related topics such as lead poisoning, water quality, and Lyme disease. Readers can explore the data and create charts, maps, and tables on our data portal.

We also have some new data for 2021! The profiles now include data on motor vehicle-related fatalities, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and extreme heat and precipitation projections.

We’ve put together resources to help you take the next step:

• Messaging Tips and Sample Press Release: If you plan to write a press release to share highlights from your profile, our messaging tips and a sample press release can help you get started. These files are housed in Sharepoint. If you cannot access Sharepoint, please email us and we'll send you the files.
• Ideas for Taking Action: Review Ideas for Taking Action, a series of documents that outline potential strategies—from the individual to policy level—a community can take to address the topics in the profiles. 

We want to hear what you think of the 2021 Profiles!

Please complete this short survey letting us know how you use the profiles and what you would like to see in future versions. Your feedback will help us create profiles that are most useful to you!

If you have questions about the County Environmental Health Profiles or the Tracking Program, please do not hesitate to contact us.

New Mini-Grantees Off to a Great Start!

On August 1, our newest cohort of grantees kicked off their projects under our Taking Action with Data mini-grant program. Six grantees were funded at up to $10,000 each to complete small-scale environmental health projects in their communities over the next year. Their project proposals were based on local data from our data portal.  

This year's grantees include:

Bayfield County—Cooling and Warming Shelter Outreach

Brown County—Increasing Childhood Lead Testing Rates through Provider Medical Records

Calumet County—Lowdown on Lyme Disease

City of Oak Creek—Taking Action to Educate on the Risks of Radon: To Test is to Know

Green Lake County—Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention in High Risk, Rural Populations

Lincoln County—Increasing Manganese Water Testing in Lincoln County

This is the sixth year of the Taking Action with Data mini-grant program. Since 2015, we have invested $430,000 to fund 44 projects in 32 Wisconsin jurisdictions. To read success stories from these projects, visit our Resources page.

CDC Tracking Has Released a New Melanoma Dashboard!

This dashboard was created through a partnership between the CDC's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and CDC’s Environmental Public Health Tracking Program and provides a wide range of state and local data to help communities address melanoma prevention.

Key features include:

• State- and county-level data on melanoma incidence and mortality.
• State- and county-level data on UV irradiance.
• State policies regarding minors’ access to indoor tanning devices and sunscreen use at schools.
• Additional county-level data to help inform and target local prevention efforts.

Although melanoma incidence rates have continued to increase in recent years, evidence-based prevention strategies are available and ready to be put into action in communities. The Melanoma Dashboard provides easy access to the most recent and relevant data, empowering users to communicate effectively about the burden of melanoma and make data-driven decisions that will maximize the impact of their prevention efforts.