Toward Environmental Justice Research, Education, and Health Policy Needs (1999) / Chapter Skim
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4 Education
4 Education
Pages 45-60
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From page 45... ...
This is often true for health care providers as well, who struggle to understand and stay current on issues such as the effects of the environment on health. Moreover, as described by participants in the committee's site visits, current efforts at educating health professionals and the public about the importance of the influences of the environment on human health do not seem adequate.
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From page 46... ...
These minimums are needed in many areas, including medical education, public health professional education, and nursing and allied health sciences. Medical Education Most medical students and residents receive very little training in environmental health or occupational medicine.
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From page 47... ...
The sentinel health condition is the clinical application of the "sentinel health event (occupational) " originally proposed by Rutstein and colleagues (1983)
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From page 48... ...
Identification of a patient with a sentinel health condition is not diagnostic however, and must be followed by an appropriate clinical evaluation to confirm or rule out the environmental or occupational diagnosis. In addition to the need for enhanced EOM training for primary care physicians, previous publications (Castorina and Rosenstock, 1990; Institute of Medicine, 1988b)
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From page 49... ...
While the neglect of funding for public health practice research and education has continued, the public health workforce that was trained for such positions as sanitarians, air and water analysts, soil testers, food inspectors, epidemiologists, and public health educators has been graying and shrinking. In its place has come a new generation of public health school graduates who consequently focus their careers on basic research rather than the once traditional track of cornmunitybased public health assessment, surveillance, and service.
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From page 50... ...
Recruitment of faculty and admission of students should give appropriate weight to prior public health expenence as well as to academic qualifications. Schools of public health should provide students an opportunity to learn the entire scope of public health practice, including environmental, educational, and personal health approaches to the solution of public health problems; the basic epidemiological and biostatistical techniques for analysis of those problems; arid the political arid management skills needed for leadership in public health.
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From page 51... ...
On the basis of the experiences of a variety of professionals, notably in He fields of public education, medicine, and law, increased participation by racial and ethnic minorities facilitates the delivery of vital services to ethnic and racial minority communities in the United States.
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From page 52... ...
Moreover, the communities most at risk of a lack of environmental justice are frequently the least likely to receive information, and the information that they do receive tends to stop short of providing any guidance as to what the community can do on the basis of that information for its own protection. The site visit participants also reported that the information that is provided is typically prepared by and for nonminority communities and is seldom evaluated for its comprehensibility by the intended audience.
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From page 53... ...
Methods of achieving these objectives include educating children, enhancing community leadership, and involving the community in research, that is, conducting participatory research. Educating Children The committee believes that children should be helped to understand, as early and as clearly as possible, how their health responds to external stimuli and what specific environmental hazards exist in their own communities.
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From page 54... ...
, a kindergarten to 8th-grade curriculum developed by Audrey~Gotsch and colleagues at~the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the National Institute o f Environmental Health Sciences Epicenter in blew Jersey uses air ~ , pollution examples to teach toxicology: and ~ environmental Health frisk ~assessment. In the 3rd-to 5th-grade curriculum, students learn a basic hazard assessment framework togs ~ guide their investigation ~ concerning carbon Monoxide ~poisonin 9 by using a case study that describes via family who this been Experiencing mysterious heath symptoms.
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From page 55... ...
Community Leadership How effectively individual communities address environmental justice issues often seems to depend on the presence or absence of local leadership. The committee's site visits gave it the opportunity to meet with several local leaders (see Box 4-4; the committee is also aware of communities that have gone unorganized ESampson et al., 19973~.
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From page 56... ...
: , ~ A: A: :; ! ' , : ~ A good example of participatory research that is applied to environmental justice issues is COEP, which was discussed earlier in this chapter.
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From page 57... ...
The committee recommends that environmental justice in general and specific environmental hazards in particular be the focus of educational efforts to improve the understanding of these issues among community residents and health professionals, including medical, nursing, and public health practitioners. This would include the following: · enhancing health professionals' knowledge of environmental health and justice issues, · increasing the number of health professionals specializing in environmental and occupational medicine, and · improving the awareness and understanding of these issues by the general public.
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From page 58... ...
· Strategy 3.4 Make state-mandated, federally certified copies of provider education materials and learning programs available for local care providers in all jurisdictions near sites where environmental toxicants are produced so that community health care providers are properly trained to respond to environmental hazards and accidents. · Strategy 3.5 Establish in state health departments and managed care organizations training programs in environmental medicine for practitioners in communities at risk.
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From page 59... ...
This training should include instruction in approaches to service delivery that are culturally appropriate. Incentives should be provided to the programs both to make the residents' clinical services accessible to the communities of concern and to implement and demonstrate the success of programmatic initiatives to increase the likelihood that the environmental and occupational medicine specialists will remain accessible to these communities after completion of their training.
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