Hi All,

In a broad sense, Environmental Health is the practice of promoting and

maintaining physically, emotionally, and mentally safe communities for residents and

visitors alike. Environmental Health departments within municipalities, local and state

governments, and at the national level act as umbrella agencies for many subsidiary

departments with specialized staff, including: Water Inspectors, Food Inspectors, Public

Facility Inspectors, Recreational Health Inspectors, and etc.

Environmental Health agencies are crucial for people to have a comfortable and

complication-free existence when it comes to health factors that few of us actually

notice or pay attention to. My Mom is a retired Microbiologist for the Long Beach Water

Department and, even though her work largely went unnoticed by the general public,

she was responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of potable water in the entire city. I

only mention this as an example. Environment Health departments do very important

work and we would all be in very different living situations without them. For instance,

before the County of Los Angeles implemented the letter grade rating system for

eateries there was no way of knowing as a consumer whether a facility was safely

preparing food or not. Once this program was put in place patrons were able to

determine the quality of food from a health standpoint before indulging. In addition,

programs like these are strict, to say the least. Shortly after the letter grade system was

established the restaurant I worked for at the time received a visit from a health

inspector and we received a grade of 'B' even though to me our establishment looked

pristine. There is so much that we often overlook that it is highly important we have
trained professionals in the Environmental Health practice to make sure we are safe in

many aspects of our daily lives which we rarely pay close attention to.

Even though I am fairly compulsive when it comes to maintaining the healthiest

possible environment for myself and my family, there is always room for improvement.

First of all, I would like to go back to the practice of thorough hand washing that I

adhered to while working in a hospital years ago. Back then I was hyper-aware of how

many germs can be transferred by simply touching an object or another person. Every

hospital staff member is trained on how to properly wash their hands to minimize cross-

contamination and the propagation of disease. Since then, however, I have become a

little lazy with my hand washing practices. I still wash my hands well, but know that I am

not doing as good of a job as I could. Good hand washing helps to prevent the spread

of disease, which benefits myself as well as others. In fact, I am really sick right now

and perhaps my illness could have been prevented by better hand hygiene.

Secondly, I need to correct my habit of improperly preparing food. This only

applies to myself because I take great care when preparing food for others, but I have a

tendency of preparing meals then get distracted and leave the food out for long periods

of time before consuming it. I know full well how bad this can be, especially when it

involves proteins such as pork or chicken. My goal is to start setting aside time for

meals and stop trying to multitask while I am eating. This will allow me to prepare a

meal and then eat it right away, which would help to prevent the possibility of bacteria

growth.

Thus far my goals for improved environment health have only pertained to me,

but I also have a desire to contribute to the overall health of our society and other
people. Therefore, my third environmental health goal is to start volunteering at local

shelters, food banks, or for organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. I used to

dedicate one day per weekend to volunteer before, but since then have found it hard to

have time for it. I know this is no excuse though since a couple hours per week makes a

huge difference. I don't even know if volunteering pertains to environmental health, but it

definitely helps to improve the overall health of our community and assisting those in

need is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had in life. If I can have even

a small positive impact on someone's life then our community is better off for it. It breaks

my heart to see individuals and families on the streets and I definitely want to start doing

something about it.

--Matt