edge content as they ought to be. These items should therefore be a high priority in develop- ing and/or delivering training. Quadrant 2 is defined by the knowledge areas that are high priority and high relevance. In other words, these are things that respondents indicated they needed to know and were receiving ade- quate training on. In a well-trained workforce, we would expect to see most knowledge areas falling into Quadrant 2. Items in Quadrant 3 would be high exposure but low relevance and Quadrant 4 would contain items that were low exposure and low relevance. We received responses to our survey from July–December 2022. Overall, we collected 2,253 complete responses from participants in jurisdictions engaged in retail food regu- latory work. This sample size exceeded the required size as determined by our power calculations, enhancing the robustness of our findings. Of the respondents, 68% provided location information and 49 U.S. states were represented by the respondents. Preliminary Demographic Findings Of the total responses, 1,510 were from indi- viduals representing themselves and 743 were from individuals responding on behalf of their jurisdiction’s training ocials. Of the overall responses, 76.8% were from local retail food jurisdictions, 19% from state programs, 2% from federal agencies, 1.6% from tribal agen- cies, 0.4% from U.S. territory agencies, and 0.3% from military agencies. These results were well-aligned with national statistics on where retail food regulatory professionals work. Analyses of the data are ongoing and will be further presented in a series of forthcom- ing manuscripts. These publications will pro- vide details on the demographics of the EPH food regulatory workforce, a deeper under- standing of relevance of and exposure to key knowledge areas, and training recommenda- tions to advance workforce development and improve food safety. Putting the Data to Work Our needs assessment survey has provided us with rich data from food regulatory pro- fessionals throughout the nation that can be used to assess the current state of workforce training, as well as how to improve training in the future. Making these data accessible to anyone involved in developing and/or deliv-
ering retail food regulatory training has been a key element of this initiative from the start. The results will be integrated into open access, peer-reviewed articles as well as an interactive online dashboard tool that will allow individuals, agencies, instructional designers, and training associations (to name a few) to dynamically examine the responses to our survey. We are hopeful that this information can help jurisdictions to understand workforce demographics in their region and to customize training pro- grams. Our intent is to build an evergreen approach into the data dashboard so that retail food regulatory agencies can update their specific information on an as-needed basis and examine changes to the data in real time to improve training and food safety. How our work will positively a¤ect retail food safety in this country is a matter for someone in the future to measure, but using the data to shore up breaches in training opportunities is work for today. We already see opportunities to develop accessible training in several key topics (e.g., knowledge areas in Quadrant 1 that were identified as low expo- sure but high relevance). The information assembled from the survey can also be used to strengthen future iterations of the NCS. Using data from the survey results, the field can establish an appropriate plan for future work- force trainings based on a rigorously identi- fied, data-driven need rather than just a want or an assumption. We see this model as replicable for all EPH areas where a curriculum is available. Main- taining a strong awareness of our EPH work- force and their needs enables us to not only strengthen the workforce and provide career pathways but also contribute to improved health for our entire population. Disclaimer: The opinions and conclusions in this editorial are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or ocial position of NEHA, partner organizations, or funding agencies. Corresponding Author: Samantha Streuli, Senior Research and Evaluation Coordinator, National Environmental Health Association, 720 South Colorado Boulevard, Suite 105A,
food safety, we were able to maximize our survey response rate. Our marketing team developed a comprehensive plan to engage communities to respond, including discuss- ing the survey with attendees at our Annual Educational Conference & Exhibition, sending postcards to members and aliates, posting on various social media platforms, and sharing information on the survey in our electronic newsletter. Other associations and councils involved in retail food safety, such as NACCHO and CFP, were key allies in making sure knowledge of the survey reached as many people as possible. Using a Data-Driven Model to Assess Exposure and Relevance Rather than asking respondents only if they had sucient training in the 59 NCS knowl- edge areas, we decided to ask them about both the relevance of each knowledge area to their job and their exposure to each knowl- edge area. Respondents first rated how rel- evant each knowledge area was to their cur- rent work (1 = not at all to 5 = very relevant), then rated their exposure to each knowledge area (1 = no exposure to 5 = strong expo- sure). By conducting the survey in this man- ner, we hoped to match the knowledge areas that workers use regularly to their train- ing needs rather than develop a wish list of training that does not align with the actual operational needs of their food safety regu- latory work. Our hope was that splitting the exposure and relevance of knowledge areas in this manner would remove the bias of want- ing rather than needing. By designing the survey with a separa- tion between the relevance of a content area to job duties and the individual’s exposure to the same content, we were able to map par- ticipant responses onto a graph, establishing four quadrants to visualize the relevance and exposure of each knowledge area (Figure 1). The y-axis was used to examine relevance to carrying out the duties of the job, while the x-axis represented exposure to the content. To establish the origin of the two axes, we chose the midpoint of the survey scale (i.e., 2.5). Using this system, any item in Quadrant 1 was a knowledge area determined to be low expo- sure but high relevance. In other words, these were items that respondents indicated they needed to know for their work, but they were not receiving as much exposure to the knowl-
Denver, CO 80246-1910. Email: sstreuli@neha.org.
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January/February 2024 • Journal of Environmental Health
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