Oral

The purpose of the session is to familiarize participants with the draft national Environmental Public Health Performance Standards, a companion module to the National Public Health Performance Standards. This new tool will assist agencies in building agency capacity in environmental health, and improves agency consistency and accountability across the nation. The Standards help agencies to measure the capability of environmental health programs to perform the essential services of environmental health, to identify needed changes to enhance capacity, and to measure improvement. The process also helps agencies prepare for the advent of accreditation. Over the past year, representatives from local, state, and tribal agencies across the U.S. worked with the draft national Environmental Public Health Performance Standards to assess and improve the infrastructure of their agencies. Presenters will be environmental health professionals from the local, state, and tribal agencies that have been using the Standards over the last year. Panelists will share their experiences with completing the standards instrument and review the challenges and successes associated with their efforts to improve infrastructure and services.

Session Objectives: 1. Will learn about the value of the National Environmental Public Health Performance Standards to improve agency capacity to perform the essential services of environmental health. 2. Will understand how to use the Standards assessment tool to complete a gap analysis and action plan in order to improve environmental health services within their jurisdiction 3. Will be able to describe how to access on-line tools and other resources that will assist agencies in meeting some of the National Environmental Public Health Performance Standards