Environmental Health Practice

For Public Health

Key points

  • The environmental health workforce is critical to protecting public health and the environment.
  • These professionals help ensure healthy communities through the practice of environmental health.
Hands holding puzzle pieces

Did you know?

About 1 in 4 environmental health professionals plans to retire within 5 years.1 This presents recruitment and workforce development needs.

Describing the workforce helps us identify gaps in staffing and training. This information can help programs prepare to meet future challenges.

Why it matters

Building a stronger environmental health practice is important for several reasons

  • Environmental health professionals commonly work in multiple program areas.
  • These professionals require unique technical and scientific expertise.
  • Environmental health professionals can use data to increase service impact and inform best practices.
  • Environmental health efforts often go unnoticed until problems occur (for example, foodborne outbreaks, vector-borne diseases, contaminated water supplies, disasters).

Resources

Professionals working together, reaching their hands in to collectively put the puzzle pieces together.
Environmental Public Health Practice Gateway
Health departments: Explore practices to solve environmental health problems in your jurisdiction.
Overhead shot of different people's hands holding white puzzle pieces.
Environmental Health Capacity (EHC)
Learn about how CDC is working to strengthen health department environmental health programs.
Flooded neighborhood
Resources to Support Recovery
Find environmental health resources to support recovery after an emergency.
Print
Content Source
National Center for Environmental Health
About This Page
Published: May 15, 2024
Updated: December 28, 2023

This page was last updated on this date. Updates may include minor edits, image changes, or other modifications to page content.

Reviewed: August 27, 2026

The information on this page was last reviewed by subject matter experts to ensure accuracy.

  1. Gerding JA, Landeen E, Kelly KR, Whitehead S, Dyjack DT, Sarisky J, et al. Uncovering environmental health: An initial assessment of the profession's health department workforce and practice. J Environ Health. 2019;81(10):24-33.