To Eliminate the Incidence of Injury and Illness Related to Environmental Health Risks by Performing the Following Activities Which Form the Definition of Public Health:
Prevention - True improvement in health status mainly results from preventive services. In Environmental Health these can be described as:
- • identifying potential hazards and the magnitude of risk to the public,
- • designing interventions or abatement strategies that reduce the risk of
injury or disease before they occur.
Education - provides people with the knowledge and skills necessary to create healthy lifestyles and home and workplace environments. Public education is essential to the reduction of injury and disease caused by environmental factors.
Surveillance - involves the detection, investigation, and monitoring of conditions and/or activities with the potential for illness or injury. Environmental Health staff work in the field on a daily basis:
- • responding to environmental complaints,
- • collecting samples,
- • conducting environmental investigations,
- • performing routine inspections of regulated facilities.
Evaluation - capabilities, including policy deployment and reviews and analyses of surveillance data, are essential in providing feedback as to the quality of services which we provide and the success of our prevention
initiatives. In addition, research and open communication with the scientific and regulatory communities remain the cornerstone of anticipating and planning for our response to emerging environmental health issues.
Vision
Environmental Health strives to attain excellence in the delivery of services we provide, to both those facilities we regulate and to the general public. Environmental Health aspires to be recognized as a forerunner in environmental health through:
- • increasing community outreach and public education, thereby focusing on prevention,
- • improving our response time in evaluating and mitigating potential environmental health hazards,
- • enhancing our management information system to create an effective inspectional surveillance program,
- • expanding our research capabilities to all divisions of Environmental Health to enable response to prevailing and emerging public health issues,
- • integrating services in Environmental Health and within the Health Department to move beyond categorical programming to comprehensive service provision,
- • competing successfully for limited available resources to fund innovative approaches in the provision of core public health functions,
- • creating economic incentives for prevention, and
- • re-establishing Environmental Health as an integral part of, and inseparable from public health.
Fact Sheets
For more information, call 311.
