CDC's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network adds pesticide exposure and prospective climate data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National En­ vironmental Public Health Tracking Network (Tracking Network) expands con­ tent and functionality every year. This year, two new datasets were added: pesticide expo­ sure and 70 years of prospective climate data. These represent two important environmen­ tal public health concerns. In 2012, pesticides were the 10th leading cause of poisoning exposure reported to poison control centers in the U.S. (Mowry, Spyker, Cantilena, Bai­ ley, & Ford, 2013). Understanding how and where pesticide exposures are happening can inform public health interventions and pub­ lic education on the dangers of using these chemicals inappropriately. Extreme heat events, or heat waves, are one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the U.S. Climate experts are particularly confident that climate change will bring increasingly frequent and severe heat waves and extreme weather events, as well as a rise in sea lev­ els. These changes have the potential to affect human health in several direct and indirect ways, some of them severe.