Beyond Regulatory Compliance: Enhancing Environmental Health with an Education Paradigm.

* Currently, social attitudes toward environmental health problems are driving businesses to advance beyond regulatory compliance in providing environmentally healthy services, safe workplaces, and low-impact products.

* The role of the environmental health practitioner should be to facilitate this movement away from the regulatory paradigm and toward an education paradigm.

* A comprehensive educational process includes

-- needs-and-capacity assessment, which defines current practices in relation to desired performance;

-- program planning, which identifies goals and objectives, selects instructional strategies, adopts policies, and allocates resources;

-- implementation, in which business and regulatory personnel work in tandem to develop the capacity of the organization; and

-- evaluation, which traditionally involves enforcement of regulatory compliance, but also can focus on positive behaviors such as enhancing food preparation systems or reducing waste products.

* The goal is to move those being regulated into a mode of self-inspection and compliance.

* Putting theory into practice requires knowledge and application of adult-learning strategies practiced by health educators.

* Following are some recommendations for developing an education paradigm based on adult-learning principles:

-- Allow a high level of participant control in the selection of content and learning methods.

-- Focus on developing skills that are important and immediately relevant to the work environment or that will clearly be of use in the near future. Developing abilities that lead to advancement or promotion is appealing for adults.

-- Provide choices and alternatives during the implementation phase.

-- Ensure that learning activities allow for self-expression and sharing of experiences.

-- In assessments of learning, rely heavily on self-assessment and minimize external judgement of the participant.

* Also, environmental health practitioners who work through local health departments may be able to draw on the knowledge of health educators, who often work in those departments.