FIGURE 1
Core and Secondary Environmental Public Health (EPH) Programs Determined by the National Environmental Health Association and the University of Minnesota
Pillars of Environmental Public Health A Guide to Scalable Environmental Public Health Programs
Protecting Families and Communities
Secondary EPH Programs
Secondary EPH Programs
11 Core EPH Programs
Staffing Benchmarks
Educational and Training Requirements
Equipment Needs
Success Metrics
miology and Laboratory Capacity Program), EPH departments often are locally funded based on the number of for-fee services they provide. This fee-per-service structure leaves these departments financially vulner- able (National Environmental Health Asso- ciation, 2013) and prone to prioritization of fee-generating activities (Meit et al., 2013) or to fluctuations in community needs, such
as the suspension of retail food establish- ment inspections due to the COVID-19 pan- demic in 2020. Instability in funding also contributes to a greater challenge for sta recruitment and retention. An estimated 46% of public health employees at state and local govern- ment levels left their organizations between 2017–2021 (Leider, Castrucci, et al., 2023).
It is estimated that local public health departments require approximately 54,000 more FTEs to implement foundational pub- lic health services than are currently filled (Leider, McCullough, et al., 2023; Public Health Accreditation Board, 2022). High rates of turnover limit the ability of EPH programs to eectively respond to changing community needs.
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July/August 2025 • Journal of Environmental Health
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