ADVANCEMENT OF THE PRACTICE
Open Access
DIRECT FROM ATSDR
Promoting Environmental Health and Environmental Medicine Resources From ATSDR: Educator Insights
Sandra López-Carreras, MS Arthur Wendel, MPH, MD
David Mellard, PhD Zheng Li, MPH, PhD
academic institutions and to inform how to best engage academic audiences and encour- age the use of the resources. The ultimate goals are to enhance public health education, build capacity among future environmental health and medical professionals, and help these pro- fessionals be better equipped to address real- world environmental health issues. Methods ATSDR used a 5-step process to develop the marketing initiative (Figure 1). These steps were implemented by a contractor with ATSDR oversight. Step 1: Create a Marketing Plan We developed a marketing plan that outlined the goals, design, evaluation metrics, and mar- ket research information. The metrics assessed the eectiveness of the marketing materials, participant feedback on the resources, and insights for future marketing eorts. The marketing plan included several components: •Identifying environmental health and environmental medicine resources for this pilot project. •Developing three brochures: one pro- moting environmental health resources, another focusing on environmental medi- cine resources, and a third combining both environmental health and environmental medicine materials. • Determining the approach, including shar- ing the brochures, conducting a prefo- cus group survey, and holding two focus groups (one for environmental health and one for environmental medicine). • Developing participant inclusion criteria, with each focus group consisting of nine professors from either academic institu-
Editor’s Note: As part of our continued eort to highlight innovative approaches to improve the health and environment of communities, the Journal is pleased to publish regular columns from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ATSDR serves the public by using the best science, taking responsive public health actions, and providing trusted health information to prevent harmful exposures and diseases related to toxic substances. The purpose of this column is to inform readers of ATSDR’s activities and initiatives to better understand the relationship between exposure to hazardous substances in the environment, its impact on human health, and how to protect public health. The findings and conclusions in this column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or o cial position of ATSDR or CDC. Sandra López-Carreras (retired) served as a health scientist and training coordinator in the O ce of Capacity Development and Applied Prevention Science (OCDAPS) within ATSDR. Further, Dr. Arthur Wendel is a physician in OCDAPS, Dr. David Mellard is a toxicologist and the associate director for science in OCDAPS, and Dr. Zheng Li is the director of OCDAPS.
I ntroduction When communities have concerns about possible exposures to harm- ful substances, environmental health and medical professionals are often called on to explain exposure and health risks and pro- vide recommendations to promote health. Academic curriculums for medical profes- sionals have, however, limited coverage on how to prevent, diagnose, refer, or treat patients exposed to hazardous substances in the environment. Public health schools gen- erally have robust teaching on environmen- tal health areas, although the curriculum might not suciently include real-world aspects, such as developing recommenda- tions and public health actions.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Dis- ease Registry (ATSDR) builds capacity among partners to detect, respond to, and prevent harmful exposures in communities (Li et al., 2025). ATSDR has developed a wide range of environmental health and environmental medicine resources to train and educate pro- fessionals using real-world topics, examples, and case studies. These materials are publicly available for educators, students, and health professionals, and bridge classroom teach- ings with practical applications. This column describes a pilot initiative that ATSDR conducted to market environmental health and environmental medicine educa- tional resources to U.S. academic institutions. The objectives are to obtain feedback from
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Volume 87 • Number 10
https://doi.org/10.70387/001c.140444
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