Did you attend the Environment Section business meeting in Philadelphia in December?  If you did not, you missed the results of one of the year-long efforts of the Membership Committee, namely the results of the Environment Section survey. Completed in late-October, 2005, the purpose of the survey was to gather information needed to continue to respond to the needs of the Section membership.  More than 200 people, or about 20 percent, of the Section's members responded.  Here are a few highlights from the survey:  Fifty-five percent of the respondents were members of the Environment Section two years or less.  Of the non-mutually exclusive reasons people joined:  90 percent joined to join other environmental professionals in promoting public health; 88 percent to establish professional contacts through networking opportunities; 86 percent to affiliate with a national organization; 83 percent to receive up-to-date information; 61 percent for continuing education; and 53 percent to engage in person leadership development.

The top four benefits/services offered by APHA were networking, advocacy, the American Journal of Public Health and The Nation's Health. With regard to the Environment Section, although 40 percent rated the Section's accomplishments within the last year good or better, 43 percent had no opinion of accomplishments, meaning that we need to do a better job of letting our Section members know what we are doing.  As a corollary to that, when asked what "would you like to see improved upon" in the Section, more than 70 percent of respondents cited a communication-related issue as a first choice.  These included: communication about environment/public health policies and issues; more communication between leadership and members; an updated Environment Section Web site; and communication about APHA policies and issues.  On the other end of the scale, recruitment gained the spot as the last thing members thought our Section needed to improve and mentoring and networking fell in the middle.   

Always on the look out for new blood for the section leadership, we asked the question, if you considered but decided not to run for a Section elected position, why? Almost half of the respondents (48 percent) wrote in that they had time commitments/constraints/limitations. Coming in number two, at 31 percent, were issues related to elected positions, some of which demonstrated a lack of knowledge about those positions, including: being too new; already involved; "term is too long;" not knowing the requirements; not knowing enough people to run for office; and "I don't like to do these things."  

The last question was really not a question, just a place for comments.  Members basically used this question as a forum for letting us know what additional activities they would like to see the Section involved in.  For example, there was a desire for the Section to be a serious research organization; plan/promote improvements in community water supplies/waste management facilities; and support education to reduce magico-religious mercury contamination of Latino/Caribbean homes.  In addition, members expressed a wide range of views, including: dues should be lower; the Section should provide more mentoring; establish a recruitment Web site for volunteers; have a monthly article in AJPH; have local meetings; share the membership list with organizations with common interests; have more involvement with public health agencies; have better communication about Section activities/APHA structure/advocacy.

Now that we know what you feel we should be working on, we shall establish a timeline for attending to some of these activities.  We welcome your participation to make these things happen.  Please contact us; we look forward to having you join us. 

Dorothy Stephens, Dorothy.Stephens@CMS.hhs.gov and/or Susan Lynn Stone, Stone.Susan@epamail.epa.gov