February 8, 2024

About Arizona Tracking Program

The purpose of the Arizona (AZ) Tracking Program is to support conducting environmental health surveillance that guides public health actions to prevent or lessen the effects of environmental hazards in Arizona.

Background

Arizona is the sixth largest state by area. It has a diverse geography, from arid deserts to semi-arid mountainous regions.

Arizona is home to 21 federally recognized Native American tribes, and about one-quarter of the state is tribal land.

Arizona is prone to extreme weather hazards that impact public health. These include extreme heat, wildfires, poor air quality from dust storms and wildfire smoke, and flash flooding during monsoon season.

Arizona has 90,000 domestic registered wells. Water quality among unregulated water systems (i.e. private wells) is a primary environmental health concern. Heavy metals, such as arsenic, are common groundwater contaminants. Prolonged exposure to them can lead to negative health effects.

Accomplishments

Helping Improve Screening for Childhood Lead Poisoning

AZ Tracking collaborated with the AZ Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP) to create a mapping application to improve targeted screening of children who are higher risk of lead poisoning. In the past, CLPPP used zip codes to indicate targeted areas. However, neighborhood and population characteristics can vary greatly in a zip code. Now, parents and health care providers can enter an address and receive that neighborhood’s screening recommendations at the census tract level. This tool improves accessibility to lead risk mapping and improves health communication by providing screening recommendations at a more appropriate geographic scale.

Tracking Data and Tools Inform Arizona’s COVID-19 Response

As COVID-19 became widespread in Arizona, easy-to-access, transparent information was needed about the presence of this disease in the state. In addition, pandemic responders needed ways to better understand and track the state’s healthcare capacity and ability to address COVID-19. The Arizona Tracking Program led the development and implementation of several applications for the state’s COVID-19 response, which helped researchers identify locations of increased numbers of COVID-19 cases, helped track the number of cases over time, created resources for identifying vaccine accessibility and treatment locations, and made finding a funeral home and crematory services easier for hospital staff during death surge events.