Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) - Awareness Level

CDC’s Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) Awareness Level course is now available through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Alabama.

This awareness-level training, sponsored by DHS/FEMA and CDC/National Center for Environmental Health, is a 32-hour (4-day) course that provides an overview of environmental health topics, issues, and challenges faced during emergency response. The purpose of the course is to increase the level of emergency preparedness of environmental health practitioners and other emergency response personnel by providing them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources to address the environmental health impacts of emergencies and disasters.

Transportation, lodging, and meals are provided by DHS/FEMA to students from state, local and tribal jurisdictions at no cost to their agency. For more details about this course and other EHTER courses being offered, please visit https://cdp.dhs.gov/schedules/program/s.html.
(NOTE: Please click on the “Continue with LIMITED functionality” tab to proceed)

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 in this area.

To address this need, CDC’s Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) collaborated with the Florida Department of Health; Louisville Metro Health Department; and other federal, state, and local public health and environmental health partners to develop a comprehensive pilot training. EHTER's 10 modules 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, responder safety, building assessment, solid waste/hazardous materials, radiation and environmental health response, and disaster management.

CDC strives to make EHTER available to the environmental health workforce at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels. To help ensure that this critical component of the public health workforce has the training they need in emergency response, EHTER is also available through the following mechanisms:

• Free online course through the National Environmental Health association (registration is required)
• Free in-person training (NOTE: Please click on the “Continue with LIMITED functionality” tab to proceed)

Environmental health practitioners 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 them with the basic knowledge, skills, and resources to address the environmental health concerns that result from emergencies and disasters.

Hundreds of environmental health practitioners from all 50 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia have completed EHTER pilot trainings. 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 the training with each successive pilot. Participants have also demonstrated real-world application of the concepts and information learned, improving response capacity during actual emergencies and disasters such as power outages, a train derailment with release of hazardous materials, tornadoes, and wildfires.

Several states, including Florida, Arizona, California, Louisiana, and West Virginia, have adopted the EHTER curricula and delivered courses for their environmental health practitioners.

Next Steps

CDC experts are working closely with FEMA/CDP in Anniston, Alabama, to deliver the training to environmental health practitioners across the country. Future plans include the development of operational- and planning/management-level EHTER courses.

Top of Page