Revitalizing environmental health services.

During my campaign for NEHA president, I advanced the ideas that NEHA should be the visible and vocal advocate of the environmental health profession and that NEHA must take an active role in promoting the environmental health profession. I have come to realize that NEHA cannot accomplish these tasks alone. There is, however. great strength in our many NEHA affiliates, and I propose a partnership.

Affiliates are our partners, and partnering leverages our strengths. To improve the environmental health profession and the delivery of environmental health services, we must work together. I suggest that we need state affiliates who can be legislatively active within their states, and that we need a plan to revitalize the environmental health profession. To accomplish these goals, I propose a two-part partnering program.

I have asked Peter Schade, past-president of the Ohio Environmental Health Association (OEHA), to chair a committee that will survey NEHA affiliates. The idea is to see what legislative successes the affiliates have had. I have asked Peter to compile a blueprint that affiliates can use to become legislatively active and succesful. He will be supported by NEHA Region 6 Vice-President Mike Phillips in this partnership effort. I encourage you to call Peter or Mike with your thoughts and ideas as they gather information and develop this blueprint.

I asked Peter Schade to chair this committee because in my discussion with him, he told me that when the Ohio state legislature considers legislation affecting the environment and environmental health, it calls OEHA for advice, Imagine, the Ohio legislature calls OEHA for advice! That's almost unheard of in the environmental health profession. For a state affiliate to command that much respect, it must be doing something right, and I believe we can all learn from its experiences.

I see this effort as an affiliate self-help program, and that is another reason I chose an affiliate past-president to lead it. All the affiliates I talk to wish they were more effective with environmental legislation in their state. This topic dominated discussion at the Affiliate Presidents Meeting held at the NEHA Annual Educational Conference (AEC) in Reno. Whether legislation is about food protection or onsite wastewater regulations, licensing of environmental health practitioners or bills that affect the environment, affiliates want to be involved and have an effective voice. Once the legislative blueprint has been constructed and disseminated, state affiliates can begin to implement it and will have the tools necessary to influence the legislative process with respect to all sorts of environmental legislation.

While affiliates are developing and implementing tools to influence their state legislative process, NEHA will be working to further the plan to revitalize the environmental health services.

On May 9, 2002, I attended a live, interactive satellite broadcast at which the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their Strategy to Revitalize Environmental Health Services in the United Slates. Its initiative sets a course to revitalize environmental health and stands as the first major movement to define and invigorate the system within which environmental health is practiced. It is the first indication that the federal government has truly declared an interest in the future health, capability, and effectiveness of this profession.

Our members need to know that NEHA has already had a major influence on the direction of this strategy and will continue to work on the strategy with NCEH, CDC, and other stakeholders in the profession. NEHA is nurturing relationships with Dr. Richard J. Jackson, director of NCEH: Dr. Patrick J. Meehan, director of the NCEH Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services; and Dr. Sharunda Buchanan, chief of the CDC Environmental Health Services, to support the revitalization plan and move it forward. We are pleased that Dr. Meehan was able to he our keynote speaker at the NEHA AEC in Reno to discuss the plan with attendees. I urge you to read the "Strategy to Revitalize Environmental Health Services in the United States," which you can find on the Web at http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs.

This two-part program will provide a plan to revitalize environmental health services and provide the tools and initiatives necessary to introduce legislation to promote the plan. Some of the plan will require legislative initiatives at the state level--for instance, to establish or improve environmental health licensing laws and to better define the role of environmental health within the public health community. Legislatively active state affiliates will be best prepared to initiate important legislation to affect public policy, to improve the profession, and to improve the delivery of environmental health services.

The effort to revitalize the environmental health profession is bigger than the resources of NEHA or any affiliate individually, but with support from the federal government and with this partnership we are building between NEHA and affiliates, we can leverage our strengths for common goals.

The goals are large, but we have been talking about revitalizing our profession for too long. Now we have the opportunity to do something about it. If we, the members of NEHA, our affiliates, and the entire environmental health profession do not support the effort, it will fail. An opportunity like this comes only rarely, especially an opportunity in which the federal government has an interest to support.

This challenge will take an extra effort from all of us, but in the long run, we will have a better profession for it and an improved, more qualified system for delivering environmental health services to the nation. I can think of no more noble effort for our profession than a cooperative effort to revitalize the delivery of environmental health services in our country.

I urge you to get involved in these initiatives. The revitalization of environmental health services in the United States depends on your participation.

Thank You for Supporting the NEHA/AAS Scholarship Fund

National Conference of Local Environmental Health Administrators

(10/02)

In memory of the late John O. Tironi

Lisa Jones

Las Vegas, NV (10/02)

Robert Blake, R.E.H.S., M.P.H.

Conyers, GA (11/02)

Karen A Holmes, R.S. M.M.A.

Wheaton, IL (1/03)

Denise L. Teague

Elkton, MD (1/03)

Sanford M. Brown, Ph.D.

Fresno, Ca (1/03)

John F. Devincenzi

San Jose, CA (1/03)

Fred J. Siebenmann, R.S.

Moline, IL (1/03)

Kenneth D. Blehm

Ft. Collins, CO (1/03)

Richard Collins, M.S.E.H., R.S., D.A.A.S. Atlanta, GA (3/03)

Herbert A. Dalton, R.S.

Ledyard, CT (3/03)

John A. Steward, R.E.H.S.

Atlanta, GA (4/03)

Vincent J. Radke, M.P.H., R.E.H.S.

Atlanta, GA (4/03)

James D. Nelson, Jr.

Tampa, FL (5/03)

Mark B. Stevens

Logan UT (5/03)

Marian Balster

Los Altos (5/03)

Richard L. Roberts, M.P.H.

Grover Beach, CA (5/03)

Harve LaBounty

Citrus Heights, CA (6/03)

In memory of John Warren

Ronald D. Phillips, R.E.G.S., M.P.H.

Clay Center, KS (6/03)

Lisa S. Trujillo

Addison, TX (6/03)

Frank S. Sedzielarz, R.S.

Minneapolis, MN (6/03)

Admiral John G. Todd, Dr.P.H., R.S.

Poolesville, MD (7/03)

Vickie L. Church, R.E.H.S.

San Diego, CA (7/03)

James J. Balsamo, Jr., M.S., M.P.H., M.H.A., R.S., C.F.S.P.

New Orleans, LA (7/03)

Saranecki Bros 

Chicago, IL (9/03)