“Accreditation and environmental health: Partnerships to improve the performance of our public health agencies”

The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) was incorporated in 2007 as the nation's independent agency to manage the accreditation process for state, local and tribal public health departments. The past two years have been spent in development and testing of the standards, measures, and accreditation process. Unlike some other accreditation programs in the health arena, the PHAB process is based on a quality improvement framework with social justice, social equity, health disparities reduction, public health ethics and transparency serving as the inherent values in the accreditation system. The purpose of this session is to provide an update on the status of the accreditation program beta testing and a discussion on the he active role the Public Health Accreditation Board has played in engaging the environmental health community to improve the effectiveness of the Standards and the Accreditation process. The anticipated long-range outcome of the accreditation program is to affect the health status of the United Stated population by ensuring that all of its citizens are covered by accredited health departments.