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There is a severe shortage of environmental health professionals. Training of
environmental health professionals is overseen by the National Environmental
Health Science and Protection Accreditation Council. NEHSPAC created criteria for
undergraduate and graduate environmental health programs and accredits
universities that meet those criteria. The Association of Environmental Health
Academic Programs (AEHAP) helps universities receive
NEHSPAC accreditation. Only 600 students come out of these accredited programs
each year.
Thus, it is critical not only to increase the number of environmental health
professionals, but also to ensure that other health professionals have basic
environmental health training. The American College of Occupational and Environmental
Medicine offers continuing education credit and environmental medicine
information to physicians while the American Association of
Occupational Health Nurses does the same for nurses. Environmental medicine
research and practice information is also provided for doctors and nurses by the National Academy
of Science.
Training for state and local environmental health professionals on how to
assess, manage, and inform the public about environmental illness is provided
by the National Center
for Environmental Health and the National Association of Local
Boards of Health.
Training to enable people from poor minority communities to cleanup
environmental contamination is available from the National Institute
for Environmental Health Science. Similar training and education of workers
engaged in activities related to hazardous materials and waste generation,
removal, containment, transportation and emergency response is also available
from the Advanced Technology
Environmental Education Center and the National Environmental Training
Association.
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