Role of the Environmental Health Practitioner in Protecting Public Health - Essay Example

HOW DOES THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTITIONER (EPH) PLAY A PART IN PROTECTING THE HEALTH OF THE PUBLIC? Instructor name: Date due: Environmental health refers to all the physical, chemical and biological aspects that are external to an individual, as well as factors that impact behaviours that are involved in the assessment and control of those environmental factors that affect health. Environmental health is aimed at preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments (World Health Organization 2011: Para 1). Environmental health practitioners act as consultants, educators, advisors and enforcement officers who ensure people can live, play and work in safe and healthy environments. They are liable for developing, implementing and enforcing health policies using specialist skills and knowledge to maintain and safeguard standards relating to people’s health and wellbeing. Environmental health practitioners implement prevention and strive for health wellness and promotion. Health prevention aims to promote healthy behaviours and foster safe environments that minimize the risk of diseases. Environmental health practitioners thus focus on the different areas of environmental health in protecting the health of the public, which include (1) Food safety, (2) Health and Safety, (3) Housing, Environmental Protection and (4) Public Health. 1. Food safety The duty of the environmental health practitioner is to check food safety in all the stages of production from storage to distribution. They do this by implementing health protection by actions such as visiting food premises and advising managers on hygiene and safety. Moreover, they follow a regulatory framework for preventing infectious diseases in place. They also ensure food safety by educating food handlers, as well as raising consumer awareness on how to avoid food poisoning at homes. Additionally, environmental health practitioners ensure that food handlers and food premises follow laws and regulations regarding to food safety, imported food control, inspect premises to make sure that health standards are maintained, check to see that food is safe and take any suspected food if found, investigating possible offences and taking companies and individuals to court if they break any of the food safety laws (Meggitt 2003: 168). Moreover, environmental health practitioners enforce smoke-free legislation, investigate food poisoning outbreaks, develop policies to limit the number of fast food premises near schools and promote healthier menus (Mckimm & McLean 2011: 626-631). In regard to food safety, environmental health practitioners carry out food hygiene and standards inspections (Fiona & Wright 2014: 59). 2. Health and safety All individuals ought to be protected from ill health and accidents that may be triggered from work activities. Therefore, there should be decent standards of welfare at work. Therefore, it is the role of the environment health practitioner to ensure that safer workplaces are important in promoting healthier lifestyles. They do this by ensuring healthier and safer workplaces all for the benefit of promoting health; that is a principal strand of improving public and environmental health. Moreover, they provide advice to business owners on their legal responsibilities in regard to health and enforce the law when businesses do not comply with the health standards. This is vital as public health is ensured (Warburton 2009: 14). 3. Housing Environmental health practitioners play an imperative role in promoting decent housing to the public. They implement this role by advising on health and safety concepts linked to new buildings and developments. This implies that they are at the forefront of activities in the prevention of ill health which may occur due to poor housing conditions. They focus on helping individuals who reside in private sector housing by ensuring that landlord’s carry out the necessary repair or improvement works. This is from the fact that many homes have problems of disrepair or out-dated fittings and poor sound insulation; which may pose a health risk. In addition, environmental health practitioners help in giving advice to house occupiers on decent housing and affordable accommodation (Krieger & Higgins 2002: 758-768). 4. Environmental protection The protection of key areas of our environment is important for human health. Clean air, clean and adequate supply of water, the public being protected from the harmful effects of noise and waste are essential for the public’s well-being. The duty of the environmental health practitioner is to perform regular reviews and assessments of air quality in an assigned milieu. They implement health promotion to enhance health by developing healthy environments and personal resilience. Health promotion entails strengthening the skills of individuals to encourage healthy behaviours and building healthy social and physical environments to support these behaviours. They, therefore, aid in regulating certain types of industrial processes that cause air pollution. Air pollution is evident from the adverse effects it causes to mankinds health is a risk. Therefore, environmental health practitioner provides advice to business owners and others on how to minimise air pollution. They also investigate complaints and follow up on the action plans. Noise is an inevitable part in our lives, but there are cases where noise becomes extreme and can be damaging to our health; this is part of environmental pollution. Therefore, environment health practitioners ensure that the degree of noise in the environment is maintained at a degree that is not harmful to health of the public. They do this by investigating and giving solutions to instances of excess noise. They also take legal action in cases where persuasion and negotiation tactics does not occur. Therefore, environment health practitioners role is ensuring that overall levels of noise in the milieu are reduced (Spear 2009: 22). Clean water is a paramount commodity for human health. Water should be clean and safe for human consumption. Environment health practitioners are involved in protecting the water quality. They also sample public water from time to time to check to minimise any risks to health. They are also responsible for identifying and checking private water supplies. Where problems occur with such supplies, environment health practitioners collaborate with the specified individuals for instance engineers and quality control analysts to ensure that the water is improved. They can take legal action if need be to achieve water safety (Vickers 2011:35). 5. Public health Environmental health has a profound contribution in improving public health and minimizing health inequalities to the community. Environmental health is essential to the achievement of long-term improvements in the health. The duty of an environmental health practitioner is to create and maintain health of sustainable communities, as well as to address the health consequences of environmental degradation and global alterations in climate, habitat and energy supplies. Environmental health practitioners implement public health protection by reducing environmental dangers to the health of the population. This may include chemical, biological, or physical agents that may trigger epidemics. Environment health practitioners do this as they have knowledge that public health is concerned with policies and practice in improving and or preventing and controlling of infectious diseases and other environmental risks to the health of the public. Moreover, environmental health practitioners ensure that the adequate control of pests is maintained. This is essential to the maintenance of a safe environment for the public. This is because pests pose a range of health hazards; for instance, the spread of pest-borne illnesses, which decreases the quality of life and increase the demand on scarce medical resources. In ensuring that their role is effective, environment health practitioners help the public in better understanding for pest management; they also help in improving the pest control management by pesticide use (Bennett 2010: 3). In conclusion, the environmental health practitioners have a role in safeguarding the community and the environment. This is done in favour of the prevention of illnesses and promotion of health; supporting environments. Moreover, they educate and advise the public on how to live and live in a safe environment. They also have an obligation to take legal action against the businesses and companies that break the environmental laws and regulations. Bibliography BENNETT, P. (2010). Risk communication and public health. Oxford, Oxford University Press. KRIEGER, JAMES, AND DONNA L. HIGGINS. "Housing and health: time again for public health action." American journal of public health 92, no. 5 (2002): 758-768. MCKIMM, J., & MCLEAN, M. (2011). Developing a global health practitioner: Time to act?. Medical teacher, 33(8), 626-631. MEGGITT, C. (2003). Food hygiene and safety: a handbook for care practitioners. Oxford, Heinemann. SIM, FIONA, AND JENNY WRIGHT, eds. Becoming a Public Health Practitioner: An Introduction to Careers in Public Health. Routledge, 2014. SPEAR, S. (2009). ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION-Flight or fight-Stuart Spear reports on the stress theory of how noise levels affect health. Environmental Health Practitioner, 117(9), 22. VICKERS, A. (2001). Handbook of water use and conservation. Amherst, MA: WaterPlow Press. WARBURTON, NICK. "HEALTH PROTECTION-Urgent response-Nick Warburton reports on proposals to update health protection laws." Environmental Health Practitioner 117, no. 9 (2009): 14. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. (2011). Closing the gap: policy into practice on social determinants of health: discussion paper. In World conference on social determinants of health. Read More