History and development of the draft national Environmental Public Health Performance Standards

The presenter will describe the history and development of the draft national Environmental Public Health Performance Standards (EnvPHPS) which are being finalized as a companion module to the National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS). The field of environmental health as practiced at the state, tribal or local levels require a system capable of anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, and controling environmental health problems. The essential services of environmental health provide an excellent description of what is meant by providing the core functions of public health. The EnvPHPS provide a useful tool for state, tribal, and local environmental health systems or programs to assess their capacity to perform the essential environmental health services. This is all critical to improving the role of environmental health from one of primarily code enforcement to one of assessment, policy development, and assurance. The speaker will also discuss how the EnvPHPS are related to the NPHPS and the value of adopting and using the standards in improving the national environmental health system.