Brian Hanna - President of the CIEH
The Health Development Agency (HDA), in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), has recently published the findings of a project which sets out a strategic vision for the contribution of the environmental health profession to the development of health and well-being.
A key finding of the report is that environmental health practitioners need to understand the impact of environmental health on health and inequalities and how to evaluate the effectiveness of their work.
The report makes it clear that, “a research programme is needed to gather, and make widely available, high quality and reliable evidence of public health interventions by environmental health”. This is a clarion call which has already been answered by the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Environmental Health Research (JEHR) earlier this year.
An evidence based approach to the development and enhancement of environmental health services is essential and the outcome of such work must be widely disseminated to all those academics and practitioners who can benefit from it.
I am therefore delighted, as President of the CIEH, to be associated with the second issue of the JEHR which features research projects carried out by a number of environmental health academics and practitioners. This work covers a number of important environmental health specialist areas and will, I am sure, prompt changes in practices and procedures in the field.
It seems to me that the publication of the JEHR is an initiative which is both necessary and timely and I would encourage environmental health professionals and practitioners to get involved in research projects by using the opportunity which now presents itself to have their work published in the JEHR.
The first issue of the JEHR was greatly welcomed and filled a gap which has existed for far too long. This second edition builds on that success.
All professionals must display both competence and commitment. Achieving a satisfactory level of competence in the early stages of the professional environmental health officer’s career is gained from assimilating information which is well known and by using practices which are tried and trusted. The development of such a professional, and the profession to which he or she belongs, demands an involvement in work which goes beyond what is known and applied.
It is absolutely essential for the CIEH and its members to embrace the challenge laid down by the HDA by establishing a strong environmental health research base. I am confident that our members will rise to it.