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NEW! March 2007
Presentation to Environmental Health Tracking Grantees
Program Description
The
Southeast Regional Academic Center for Environmental Public
Health (SE-RAC)
[PDF 768 KB] seeks to develop and enhance practice capacities for
members of the environmental public health (EPH) workforce. By
working with key EPH leaders in the region’s 10 states and two U.S.
territories, SE-RAC project team members identify needs and provide
or broker technical assistance, consultation, and training resources
based on core elements promulgated by federal agencies and national
organizations as standards for EPH practice. These core elements
include the Ten Essential Services for Environmental Health; the
Core Competencies for Local Environmental Health Practitioners; and
the goals of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National
Center for Environmental Health’s strategy to revitalize
environmental public health.
Accomplishments
SE-RAC developed direct-contact partnerships with the key EPH
leadership in 10 southeastern states and two U.S. territories
(Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). We continue to work with
local pubic health environmentalists in eight county health
departments on Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in
Environmental Health (PACE EH) projects.
SE-RAC disseminated information about EPH services and resources and provided conference presentations on the core elements. We developed a training package for onsite sewage treatment and are developing an online training program for environmental health specialist.
Barriers
Perceptions, pragmatics, and weather have been barriers to the
attainment of our objectives. Capacity building for EPH must be
carefully approached so that EPH practitioners do not develop the
impression that federal agencies, national organizations, and
universities are their critics in terms of suggesting that EPH
leaders and workers are “not doing their jobs; i.e., all they should
be doing” or “not doing their jobs well enough.”
Most leaders and their workforce members perceive themselves as heavily engaged in providing needed and effective EPH services, particularly with regard to the ten essential services. At SE-RAC, we forecast our project-related objectives and set up a timeline to guide the accomplishment of our work. Those who are engaged in the day-to-day provision of EPH services at the state and local levels also have their own agenda and timelines. These agenda and timelines often do not coincide and state and local EPH leaders do not see the value in responding to SE-RAC contact attempts or participating in project tasks (e.g., completing the profile worksheets).
Maintaining contacts with the network of EPH leaders in the region—especially in states along the Gulf Coast—has been strained since the hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005. The extreme amounts of time and other resources being devoted to natural disaster recovery efforts resulted in weeks and months passing before contact with SE-RAC and responses to information could even be considered.
What Is Next
National Transferability
Several SE-RAC products may have national transferability value.
Impact