EHTER Fact Sheet [PDF 110 KB]
Free Online EHTER Course Available Through NEHA
Environmental Health Training in Emergency
Response
Train-the-Trainer Workshop - NEHA, June 2008
Background
Several assessments have demonstrated the need for emergency preparedness and
response education and training for environmental health practitioners. However,
there is currently no national, comprehensive, standardized education and
training program.
To address this need, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) collaborated with the Florida Department of Health; Louisville Metro Health Department; and other federal, state, and local health and environmental health partners to develop a comprehensive pilot training. The nine modules of the Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) focus on key environmental health issues and challenges for emergency response, such as food safety, water quality, wastewater disposal, shelter assessment/sanitation, vector control/pest management, and special health concerns associated with chemical/biologic/radiation incidents.
Environmental health practitioners have important roles and perform many critical functions during emergency response, such as conducting shelter assessments, testing drinking water supplies, conducting food safety inspections, and controlling disease-causing vectors. EHTER will better prepare federal, state, local, and tribal environmental health practitioners (e.g., sanitarians, environmental health specialists) by providing the basic knowledge and skills to address the environmental health concerns that result from emergencies and disasters.
Eight EHTER pilot trainings have been conducted to date:
More than 450 environmental health practitioners from 35 states and territories completed the EHTER pilot training. Post-training test scores have consistently shown marked improvement of preparedness knowledge over pre-training test scores. Participant feedback has been very positive and has led to continuous improvements in training with each successive pilot. Participants have demonstrated real-world application of the concepts and information learned, improving response capacity during actual emergencies and disasters such as power outages, train derailment with release of hazardous materials release, tornadoes, and wildfires.
In 2007, the Florida Division of Environmental Health adopted the EHTER pilot curricula and implemented its own intrastate training program for environmental health practitioners.
A Train-the-Trainer course will be held in February 2008 in Sacramento, California, for Region 9
Next Steps
EHSB submitted a project proposal to the CDC Coordinating Office for Terrorism
Preparedness and Emergency Response for funding in fiscal year (FY) 2008. The
project will focus on four main goals.
The toolbox will provide training organizers with the materials and guidance to effectively plan and execute an EHTER workshop. It will allow flexibility based on the environmental health emergency preparedness and response education and training needs of a particular region. The toolbox will structure trainings that can be delivered in nine modules over a period of time or all at once during a multiday workshop.
The toolbox will containAdditional Information
For more information on EHTER, contact CAPT Mark Miller (770-488-7652 or
mdmiller@cdc.gov)
or Martin A. Kalis (770-488-4568 or mkalis@cdc.gov).
For more information and resources related to environmental health emergency response, visit the CDC Emergency and Terrorism Preparedness for Environmental Health Practitioners Web site at www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/ETP.