Our natural environment plays a vital role in our health and well-being. Issues like poor air or water quality, extreme temperatures, and natural disasters can lead to health problems ranging from short-term effects, such asthma attacks or heat stroke, to serious chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, and even premature death. Linking health, environmental, and exposure data is crucial to better understand the environmental health problems we are facing and develop solutions to protect our communities.

The CHORDS project therefore aims to build and strengthen data infrastructure for patient-centered outcomes research on environment and health. We will achieve this goal by providing accessible, timely, harmonized, interoperable, and linkable data on environmental factors, exposures, and health outcomes. We will also provide analytical and educational resources to support not only researchers, but also health practitioners, public health officials, and communities. These resources will help assess the health effects associated with environmental events, develop evidence-based interventions to protect society, and anticipate potential health impacts before they occur.

What is Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR)?

PCOR is research geared toward supporting physicians, public health officials, and other health practitioners in helping people stay healthier and safer. The new environmental health insights resulting from the CHORDS project will facilitate better-informed medical diagnoses, treatment recommendations, and even exposure prevention strategies that will benefit people living in affected communities. This field is one of the special interests of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), who are graciously funding this project.

What Will Be the Outcomes of the CHORDS Project?

1. A web-based catalog of resources on environment and health including data, tools and educational resources, engagement opportunities, and more.
2. Standardized, linked datasets integrating environmental exposures and health outcomes. This data will follow FAIR+ principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, and Computable).
3. A toolkit with resources and manuals to facilitate data linking and analysis by different kinds of users (beginner, intermediate, advanced).
4. An evaluation use case for wildfires and related health effects, to demonstrate the capabilities of the data catalog and its related resources.
5. Engagement opportunities to address end-user needs both on the website (user forum, FAQs, Contact Us section) and at other events (such as scientific conferences, Share Your Data events, and webinars).

Who Can Benefit From This Project?

• Researchers: our data catalog and analysis tools will further academic research across various fields including (but not limited to) epidemiology, genomics, toxicology, public health, and geophysics.
• Health Practitioners: The possibility to incorporate data from state agencies and local hospital systems into our data catalog will provide physicians and public health officials with valuable environmental health information about their communities, facilitating the tailoring of diagnoses, treatment options, and prevention strategies to the communities’ individual exposures and environmental vulnerabilities.
• Communities: In addition to the benefits of community-tailored medical and prevention responses mentioned above, the learning resources and examples in our platform will also benefit community organizers interested in learning how to analyze their own community's data to motivate grassroots efforts.
• Educators and Students: the web platform will provide useful examples and learning materials on analyzing different kinds of environmental and health data for students at the undergraduate or above levels and educators in high school or above levels.