Does Public Health Still Include Environmental Health and Protection?

Abstract

0OES the public health community still include environmental health and protection as a full partner? Do current public health leaders understand the scope, complexity, changing dimensions, as well as the political, public health, ecological and economic q c importance of environmental health and protection? Our nation's environmental protection programs are public health programs and would not exist but for the public health bases and goals of the various environmental protection programs. However, despite egocentric public health conventional wisdom, attitudes and rhetoric, organized public health includes and perhaps understands only a relatively small portion of our nation's environmental health and protection activities. For the most part, responsibility for environmental health and protection is now in the hands of environmental advocates, attorneys, economists, sociologists, engineers and political scientists. The barn doors have either been left open, or intentionally opened by various forces in our society. However, the results are the same, as most of the environmental health and protection horses are gone. Many public health leaders are apparently unaware that the public health establishment has lost organizational responsibility for most environmental health and protection activities at the federal and state levels, and continues to lose responsibility at the local level. To a significant degree, these changes have occurred due to a lack of understanding and priority; default in, or lack of leadership; and, sometimes, overt actions by public health leaders and organizations. Consider the following: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Public