ship skills, public health sciences skills, man- agement and finance skills, and leadership and systems thinking skills (Public Health Foun- dation, 2021). The Public Health Foundation core competencies also incorporate environ- mental and social justice elements to advance health equity. The children’s environmental health competencies were created to enhance public health training and highlight environ- mental health equity strategies. Our work provides a set of competencies that individuals can adopt to build their capacity as children’s environmental health professionals. Our work also builds on but does not intend to replace children’s envi- ronmental health competencies for pediatri- cians and other health professionals who are involved in the clinical care of patients. For example, the Academic Pediatric Association has developed 27 pediatric environmental health competencies with performance indi- cators regarding academic knowledge, indi- vidual patient care, and community advocacy for pediatric specialists (Etzel et al., 2003). For other healthcare providers, Goldman et al. (2021) identified 15 environmental health competencies to enable providers to eectively address environmental health concerns in pedi- atrics; the authors summarize resources such as continuing education credits, webinars, inter- active modules, and reading materials to build capacity in children’s environmental health or pediatric environmental health for clinicians. Buka et al. (2020) have suggested that profes- sional organizations at local, national, and inter- national levels develop global competencies for physicians in children’s environmental health to raise awareness of fundamental concepts. We recommend that clinicians who work as public health specialists use children’s environmental health competencies to enhance training in children’s environmental health throughout their career, including during preclinical, resi- dency, and postgraduate training. Children’s environmental health compe- tencies bring value to formal training pro- grams that do not include children’s envi- ronmental health capacity and oer value for those who train children’s environmental health professionals. We envision that the children’s environmental health competen- cies could be used to: A.Guide students interested in children’s environmental health careers as they complete their public health training.
TABLE 1
Critical Competencies in Children’s Environmental Health
Competency # Competency 1
Assess a children’s environmental health concern, risk, or potential exposure in a community and develop a briefing paper. Present information to stakeholders about children’s environmental health threats and prevention methods. Develop, implement, and evaluate a community-based intervention to mitigate a children’s environmental health threat.
2
3
4 5 6
Increase children’s exposure to healthy natural environments.
Monitor and report child health indicators to the state or local public health department. Communicate to the media promoting children’s environmental health through traditional and nontraditional outlets (e.g., social media). Identify how climate change and environmental exposures (e.g., pesticides) affect children’s health (short and long term). Be able to recognize or assess structural and systemic harms (e.g., built environment, climate change, risks associated with exposure) on children’s health. Identify federal, state, and local regulations as they relate to children’s health and the environment. Prepare and present testimony about children’s health and the environment before local and state legislators. Identify actions and evaluate yearly progress toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon footprint of an organization (i.e., state or local health department). Design environmental health guidelines that account for children’s unique vulnerabilities and long-term susceptibility to health effects.
7
8
9
10
11
12
professionals in children’s environmental health because their abilities have been gained through formal and informal training and experiences in the field. By aligning the com- petencies of children’s environmental health with public health competencies and incorpo- rating field experience, we captured essential abilities needed to work in the field. The process for developing the compe- tencies involved discussions and evalua- tions from a wide range of children’s envi- ronmental health professionals. We carried out discussions via email and monthly vir- tual meetings between May and October 2021. The first set of 10 competencies was developed by the Children’s Environmental Health Curriculum work group in July 2021. Next, this set was evaluated using a rank- ing system (i.e., 1 being the least relevant, 5 being the most relevant) by 13 members of the Children’s Environmental Health Committee to determine which competen- cies were essential for public health gradu- ates and professionals to work in children’s environmental health fields. Through this
evaluation process, we learned which com- petencies were less important and which were missing. The final set was developed in October 2021 and included the 12 compe- tencies presented in Table 1. Discussion The 12 competencies identified by a consen- sus process provide a foundation to advance the training of people who are capable of recognizing and preventing diseases and conditions from environmental exposures in childhood. This work builds on—rather than replicates—the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals from the Public Health Foundation (2021). The Public Health Foun- dation core competencies reflect founda- tional abilities for professionals engaging in the practice, education, service, and research of public health, environmental health, and children’s environmental health. The domains and abilities are data analyt- ics and assessment skills, policy development and program planning skills, communication skills, health equity skills, community partner-
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