YOUR ASSOCIATION
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Environmental Health— Everywhere and Nowhere
Tom Butts, MSc, REHS
I have been in countless conversations over the past dozen or more years about all of the great work environmental health pro- fessionals do and how—time after time—the public health community and the public at large do not recognize our practice and the contributions made in our important eorts. In late June, this conversation was again the case at the California Environmental Health Association’s Annual Education Symposium in Sacramento. Both speakers and participants expressed their frustration about the lack of awareness about environmental health pro- grams, skills, abilities, and scope of expertise. We work hard to recognize our peers but the lack of system-wide recognition for environ- mental health professionals beyond our own circle seems very limited. Stories were shared from across the country about a lack of un- derstanding of our work, even among public health agency leaders at various levels of the governmental public health system. This problem is not new as it was one of several issues called out in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) docu- ment published in November 2000— Healthy People 2010 . This report published objectives for improving the nation’s health. In response, the Division of Emergency and Environ- mental Health Services within the National Center for Environmental Health formed a steering committee that spearheaded a pro- cess that was responsible for developing and implementing the final strategy. The strategy was developed through the participation of an External Partners Work- ing Group made up of 31 members who
• Foster leadership • Communicate and market • Develop the workforce • Create strategic partnerships
I encourage each of you to get active in making our work more well-known.
In 2008, an assessment of the environ- mental health practice in Maryland iden- tified challenges that closely aligned with the goals from the 2003 strategy document. Unfortunately, it is remarkably similar to what many local environmental health pro- grams are experiencing today. The article identified issues such as funding structure vulnerabilities, workforce and recruitment challenges, poor compensation especially when compared to education requirements, and limitations in legal support (Resnik et al., 2008). So here we stand over two decades after this need was identified and the same challenges— impacted by a series of environmental pub- lic health events, most recently a worldwide pandemic—remain. Why were past efforts less than successful? From my perspective, we need a unified approach to address this issue that will engage federal, state, and local gov- ernments; our terrific industry partners; aca- demia; and other nonprofit environmental public health organizations. Is this our time to stand quietly by? No chance! A number of years ago, as an environmen- tal health director, I worked with the environ- mental health sta to estimate their contacts with community members and then com- pared those estimates to other public health programs. The conclusion was that the envi- ronmental health workforce (the second larg- est part of the public health workforce) has
represented the environmental public health and protection practice community; special populations; academia; advocacy groups; and representatives of other centers, institutes, and oces within CDC, as well as the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Regis- try. Included in this group was Mel Knight, NEHA past president (2011–2012), and Doug Farquhar, our current director of Gov- ernment Aairs. The draft strategy was then reviewed by more than 100 additional envi- ronmental health and public health experts and advocacy organizations. CDC (2003) published A National Strategy to Revitalize Environmental Public Health Ser- vices , which was intended to be a working doc- ument that would be modified over time. The intention was to identify needed resources, organize and implement activities described in the strategic plan, and create a timeline for the accomplishment of objectives. The strategy was to be a starting point for rejuvenating the environmental health sys- tem at the federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local levels in the U.S. (Buchanan, 2006). The goals of the strategy were to: • Build capacity • Support research
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Volume 86 • Number 2
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