Title: An APHA Project: Assisting CDC in Revitalizing Environmental Public Health Services
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Section/SPIG: Environment
Issue Date:
As featured in an article in the August issue of The Nation’s Health, APHA staff are engaged in a project to assist the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the revitalization of environmental public health services. CDC released a National Revitalization Strategy in September 2003 (for a copy of the strategy go to <www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs>). The overarching goal of the strategy is to enhance and revitalize the system of environmental public health services in order to address the broad range of issues facing states and communities.
Specifically, the goal of APHA’s project is to educate policymakers primarily at the national level as to what environmental public services are and why they are important. The project will also highlight critical issues faced by this workforce (such as those as outlined in ASTHO’s recent publication “State Public Health Worker Shortage Report: A Civil Service Recruitment and Retention Crisis”) and steps that are needed to manage these issues.
Educational materials, including a general brochure on environmental public health services and features for several states, are under development and will be unveiled at the APHA Annual Meeting, in an APHA exhibit booth titled “Environmental Public Health Services: Everyone. Everywhere. Every Day.” APHA is also developing a Web site for this project that will be launched in October.
Other organizations are partnering with CDC on revitalization efforts including: Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs; ASTHO (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials); Environmental Council of the States; National Association of County and City Health Officials; National Association of Local Boards of Health; National Conference of State Legislatures and National Environmental Health Association. Representatives from these associations will convene at the Annual Meeting.
Several state and local agencies as well as universities are also engaged in revitalization activities. For information on these partners, go to <http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/CapacityBuilding/excellence.htm>.
For more information about this project, please e-mail <tracy.kolian@apha.org> or call (202) 777-2435. APHA members can use their member passwords to access the full article from The Nation’s Health, online at <www.apha.org/provate/thenationshealth/thnaug04stories/enviro0804.htm>.