Professional Competencies for the Environmental Health Workforce

1. Professional Competencies for the Environmental Health Workforce Stefanie Wicks MS, CHES Manager, Office of Education and Training NC Division of Environmental Health

2. What is Environmental Health? Is it the Health of the Environment?

4. What is Environmental Health? Human health effects are connected to poor sanitation, contaminated soils, air and water, and the presence of vectors that spread disease

6. What is Environmental Health? Creating, maintaining, and proactively finding ways to promote environmental conditions that increase positive public health outcomes.

8. Environmental Health Is Public Health “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.” Intellectual Spiritual Emotional Physical

9. Who are Environmental Health Specialist Practitioners? • Salary: ???? • Education: ???? • Registration: ???? • Training: ???? • How many: ???? • How specialized: ???? • Best Practices: ???? • Career Goals: ????

10. Recent Reports Describing the Public Health Infrastructure Direction is Needed!

11. Is It Working? NO YES Don’t Mess With It! Did You Mess With It? YES YOU IDIOT! NO Anyone Else Knows? Will it Blow Up In Your Hands? You’re In Trouble! YES YES Can You Blame Someone Else? NO NO NO Hide It Look The Other Way Yes NO PROBLEM!

12. Tell Us How Assessments • Community Environmental Health Assessment (CEHA) Program – National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) • Call for a Nationwide Health Tracking System – The Pew Environmental Health Commission

13. Tell Us How Standards • The Professional in Environmental Health (NEHA)

14. Tell Us How Standards • The Professional in Environmental Health (NEHA) • FDA’s Recommended National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards

15. Tell Us How Standards • The Professional in Environmental Health (NEHA) • FDA’s Recommended National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards • Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice)

16. Tell Us How Standards • The Professional in Environmental Health (NEHA) • Recommended National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (FDA) • Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice) • Environmental Health Competency Project: Recommendations for Core Competencies for Local Environmental Health Practitioners (APHA/NCEH)

17. Description of North Carolina’s Centralized Intern Training

18. Training Inquiry ….. training modules for new environmental health specialists on health law, food sanitation, on-site wastewater, child care sanitation, lead poisoning prevention, swimming pool sanitation, safe tattooing, and institution sanitation.

19. Response “Pennsylvania is also in the very early stages of developing a new Environmental Health Specialist/Sanitarian Training program and if you have any information that may be useful to us, I would greatly appreciate it.”

20. Response “The State of Wisconsin has just adopted its version of the FDA Model Food Code. We are in the middle of providing training to our staff, local health sanitarians and industry.Of all the listed areas that your state may be working on for training modules, food inspections and in particular, the food code would be of interest to our agency.”

21. Response “In California, most training of this nature takes place at the county level. One notable exception to this is an academy that has formed to standardize every "Food Inspector" in the state. This has taken the form of a traveling seminar that has both a classroom and a field module. …”

22. Response Recently, Nebraska has been following the Level I Training Program developed by the SW Region as a guideline for long-term training for new hires. Our basic training includes a lot of office time, review of laws, videos, etc. We don't really have a module set up. This division has responsibility for food inspections. The others you mentioned are in the Health & Human Services jurisdiction.

23. Response “The City of Dallas- Food Protection and Education Division is responsible for inspection of all retail food establishments within the city limits. We do not inspect swimming pools or any other environmental areas. There are other departments and divisions which inspect the other areas you named. There are 31 Sanitarians on my staff and we are constantly looking for training materials. The majority of the staff have five years or less"field" experience. There is certainly a great need for the type of training program you are referencing.

24. Response The City of Plano requires “Training for new EHS's is provided almost entirely by current tenured staff members and supervisors in the following areas:Food Inspections/Foodborne Illness InvestigationsSwimming Pool SanitationIndustrial PretreatmentLiquid Waste (Transportation and Disposal)Tattoo Parlor InspectionsFoster Home InspectionsIndoor/Outdoor Air QualityHazardous MaterialsStorm WaterVector Control…”

25. Response “Oklahoma is using the Level I training program developed by Southwest Region FDA. Swimming pools training is conducted in pool operators classes (8 hours) and individual one-on-one training doing actual inspections (no training modules associated with this).”

26. What does this mean? “No single organisation has the capacity to manage environmental health in isolation” 1999 National Environmental Health Strategy (Australia)

27. Communication Communication is the foundation for the success of Environmental Health • Key skills and consistency for EH practitioners • Management and increased capacity • Community participation • Enhances service delivery

28. Increase Capacity “Increasing the numbers of practitioners and improving their (EHS) training is critical to the success……..”

29. Challenge Interest