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Multnomah County Environmental Health Services

    Program Description

    The focus of our grant is to build capacity in four components:

    1. Increasing public involvement, especially among ethnic minority populations, through grass-roots community-based education and by developing an Environmental Health Advisory Group;
    2. Partnering with local academic institutions to develop an environmental health internship program;
    3. Enhancing our vector surveillance program with new equipment; and
    4. Implementing a risk-rating pilot project to determine whether the Oregon license fee structure should be based on menu complexity rather than on seating capacity as a better predictor of critical violations and foodborne illness.

    Accomplishments Overall

    Awards and Recognition

    • Received the 2007 EPA Exemplary Award for our Healthy Home Asthma program
    • Received the 2006 Samuel P. Crumbine Consumer Protection Award for Excellence in Food Protection at the Local Level
    • Received the 2006 National Association of County and City Health Officials Model Practice Award for our Foodborne Illness database, Foodborne Illnesses Investigation manual, and online Food Handler Training and Testing Web site
    • Received the 2006 National Environmental Health Association Innovative Practice Award for our Environmental Health Internship program

    National Presentations and Publications

    • Presented on our workforce development environmental health internship program at the 2007 National Environmental Health Association conference
    • Presented on capacity building at the 2005 American Public Health Association conference
    • Published May 2007 Journal of Environmental Health article titled Preparing to Receive the Crumbine Award.
    • Published July/August 2007 Journal of Environmental Health article titled Building Capacity of Environmental Health Services at the Local and National Levels with the 10-Essential-Services Framework
    • Submitted an article titled Comparison of Octenol- and BG Lure®-baited Biogents Sentinel Traps and an Encephalitis Virus Surveillance Trap in Portland, Oregon, USA for publication in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association (2007)
    • Submitted an articled titled Update on Distribution of Ochlerotatus Japonicus in Oregon and Washington for publication in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association (2007)
    • Published article titled Four New Mosquito Species Collection Records for Multnomah County Oregon Including Another Exotic Introduction in the Utah Mosquito Abatement Association / Northwest Vector Control Association Proceedings and Papers of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Utah Mosquito Abatement Association

    Nationally Transferable Products
    From our capacity-building efforts, MCEH has developed four nationally transferable products:

    • Foodborne illness database and manual
    • Environmental Health Internship Manual, which provides step-by-step instructions and all the templates necessary to develop an environmental health internship program
    • Best practices to conduct environmental health education and outreach
    • Restaurant risk-rating analysis final report
    These products can help other jurisdictions develop similar models in their own environmental health programs and are available at http://www.mchealthinspect.org/capacity.shtml.

    Grant Component Accomplishments

    Component 1: Increasing public involvement, especially among ethnic minority populations, through grass-roots community-based education and by developing an Environmental Health Advisory Group

    • Created a Multnomah County Vector Control and Code Enforcement Advisory Committee
    • Developed an Online Food Handler Training and Testing Web site
    • Creation of a Somali culturally competent lead poisoning prevention education/outreach model
    • Conducted 56 education and outreach events
    • Created an Environmental Health Education Workgroup
    • Established environmental health and justice clubs in two Portland high schools, with a focus on global climate change

    Component 2: Partnering with local academic institutions to develop an environmental health internship program

    • Created three types of internship models for college students
    • Created internship application, agreement form, three internship scopes of work, student evaluation form, and an internship skills questionnaire
    • Conducted 14 internships
    • Hired two interns into Environmental Health Specialist and Vector Control Specialist positions
    • Created a manual that provides step-by-step instructions and all the templates needed to develop and implement an environmental health internship program
    • Established environmental health clubs in local high schools

    Component 3: Enhancing our vector surveillance program with new equipment

    • Purchased new microscope, monitor, and camera
    • Identified five new exotic mosquito species
    • Wrote a papers about the new mosquito findings for publication
    • Trained contiguous county and university staff on new equipment and surveillance and control techniques
    • Collaborated with local colleges on internship and research opportunities
    • Increased mosquito analysis efficiency by 1.5

    Component 4: Implementing a risk-rating pilot project to determine whether the Oregon license fee structure should be based on menu complexity rather than on seating capacity as a better predictor of critical violations and foodborne illness

    • Created menu complexity “risk” definitions
    • Performed risk analysis on 2,658 restaurants
    • Analyzed risk data and identified that the most effective way to prevent critical violations and foodborne illness is to take into account seating capacity and risk together.
    • Currently working on changing public policy
    • Currently creating a Replicable EHS Standardization model that can be used nationally

    Barriers

    A challenge that Multnomah County Environmental Health (MCEH) faced that impacted our capacity- building efforts was a reduction to our grant budget in years two and three. The loss in grant funding forced us to lay off a bilingual Community Outreach Worker.

    What Is Next

    Sustainability
    Multnomah County Environmental Health will continue sustain to our capacity building efforts using the following methods:

    • Utilize Healthy Home Summit attendees to engage policy makers in dialogue that will result in healthier housing practices
    • Maintain and enhance partnership development to sustain grass-roots involvement in appropriate policy change
    • Seek general fund, grant support. and permit fees
    • Continue internship program and engage in collaborative research projects with local universities