PACE EH Guidebook Development

Development of the Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health (PACE EH) tool began in July 1995 as a multiyear partnership between NACCHO and NCEH.

Direction and oversight came from an 18-member steering committee that included representatives from federal agencies, academia, and research institutions, as well as local environmental health professionals and community organizers. A workgroup of local public health and environmental health officials with interest and experience in assessment issues convened to write the guidebook.

The workgroup’s initial charge was to develop a set of environmental health indicators. The group unanimously agreed that to develop such indicators, community involvement was essential. Consequently, it recommended the development of a community engagement tool that would guide communities through an iterative process to identify and to rank each of the locally important environmental health issues. The group also worked to ensure that indicators developed during the assessment process would be locally appropriate and would reflect community values and priorities.

Pilot Sites

Ten local health departments were pilot sites for the development of the guidebook:

Using the pilot test results, in January 2000 the work group completed the final version of the document. Although the guidebook originally consisted of 10 to 11 tasks, the methodology eventually expanded to 13 tasks. The final version of the PACE EH guidebook was published in May 2000.

Demonstration Sites

In 2002, NACCHO invited member public health agencies to compete for federal funding to support community-based environmental health assessment activities using PACE EH. Eight local public health agencies each received $20,000. Beginning in January 2003, these eight agencies used the 13-task methodology over a 12–24 month period: