Research and database management on the Comprehensive Assessment of Rural Health in Iowa (CARHI) in collaboration with the UI Departments of Geography, Occupational and Environmental Health, and Family Medicine. Funding is provided by the CDC.

Comprehensive Assessment of Rural Health in Iowa (CARHI)—NCEH is funding and providing technical oversight to a 2- to 3-year cooperative surveillance activity that is generating baseline health data for selected rural communities in Iowa. With input from a CARHI committee of stakeholders, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) is linking environmental and health data from a rural community to allow investigation of health effects possibly associated with the environment, such as effects associated with agricultural exposures. The CARHI committee is developing a tool and process for collecting data and a CARHI database. The committee also is recruiting communities and health care practitioners to participate in the CARHI project. Public health officials will use CARHI data to monitor communities’ health, identify existing or emerging health problems that warrant further investigation, enhance or guide environmental sampling, conduct comprehensive health studies, or target important public health programs such as smoking cessation and safe farming practices.