Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

Case Study: Environmental Health Surveillance System

(EHSS)

Athanasios Plessas

Research Academic Computer Technology Institute (RACTI)

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

Situation Outline

• Problem: managing over the same area urban dwellings, industrial premises and waste management plants

• Great concern about adverse effects caused by air pollutants

• No satisfactory scientific evidence about the effects of pollutants from waste incineration on human health, nor the space dispersion

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

The project

• ENHance Health (Environmental Health Surveillance System in urban areas near incinerators and industrial premises)

• EU INTERREG IIIC funded• Main objective: the Processing of Guidelines

and Good Practices for implementing Environmental-Health Surveillance Systems

• More info about the project: http://thaleia.westgate.gr/enhance

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHS System Overview

• GIS web-based survey system for environmental surveillance

• There are two parts– Administrative application addressed to scientific

experts for data entry– Application accessible to authorized users for

querying the system and monitoring pollution levels

• System Components– Application Web Server– Database (GIS data, environmental & meteorological

data)

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

System Architecture

Queries to the database

Surveillance System Web site

Surveillance System

Database

Data Entry System

Authorized Users

Data EntryData storing

Data Retrieval

Data Retrieval

Query Submission

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Administration Pages

• Management of under study factors (environmental and epidemiological – e.g. CO, NO2, ARI etc):– Insert a new factor– Delete an existent factor– Modify a factor

• Input of records for the measured level of a factor– Manually for each record– Automatically for many records, using a file in a

predefined format

• Input of meteorological files as .met files

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Administration Pages - Screenshots

New Factor Insertion Form

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Administration Pages - Screenshots

Records Insertion Forms (manually)

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages

• Query the system for the levels of the under study factors near the incinerators for a desired period– Statistics per day, month or year for the requested

period– Colored map representation of the factor levels (green,

yellow, red)– Two modes of surveillance: data measured in a specific

point (default) and data measured in a radius around the incinerator

– Alerts in case the level of the factor is higher than the maximum allowed. Meteorological data presented in this case

– CUSUM alert control• View all produced alerts classified per region,

factor and date

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages - Screenshots

Query Form

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages - Screenshots

Map Visualization of Factor’s Levels

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages - Screenshots

Graphic Visualization of Factor’s Levels

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages - Screenshots

View Alerts Page

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages – Combinative Analysis

• How is environmental pollution related to health problems?

• The system allows a combinative analysis that helps scientists discover possible relations

• In case an alert is produced after a query about an environmental factor there is the option to view the results for the same query for all epidemiological factors and vice versa

• Scientists can compare the levels between environmental and epidemiological factors

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

EHSS Surveillance Pages – CUSUM Analysis

• CUSUM: statistical control method in order to detect sharp changes in the level of a measured factor

• An alert is produced if a sharp change is detected

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

Case Study

• The system was applied for specific territories of Italy, Poland and Hungary

• The waste incinerator plants, are located nearby urban settlements

• In case of Italy, as results are combined with the scientific evidences that are part of the strategy for Risk communication to citizens, a participative and sustainable policy model is currently under development

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

Thank you!!!