There have been a number of calls for a national environmental health monitoring system that would expand current human exposure monitoring and health surveillance efforts complemented by the development and validation of a variety of potential indicators for environmental health status. Some members of Congress have begun work on legislation to appropriate funds needed to provide for such a system, while Federal agencies have begun discussions of implementation and development of indicators.

Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine convened a workshop on Environmental Health Indicators: Bridging the Chasm of Public Health and the Environment as an opportunity to discuss current efforts by industry, private, global, and U.S. federal and state governments. 

The goal of the workshop was to look into monitoring systems of other nations; to consider the need for a national environmental health monitoring system; to foster a dialogue on the steps for establishing a nationwide monitoring system; and to explore how a national system will fit into current exposure and disease monitoring programs.  This report provides a summary of the workshop discussions.