ENVIRONMENTAL-HEALTH PARADOX - THE COMMUNICATION GAP BETWEEN IVORY TOWER AND CORPORATE AMERICA

Academic institutions educating environmental health professionals currently face a crisis in terms of recruitment, curriculum, and the relevance of their programs to the actual and/or perceived needs of the community. Employers are having similar difficulties with recent graduates whom they must frequently retrain for the specific tasks they need to perform. The environmental health profession, if in fact it is a single profession, has become a reactive force to the large number of burgeoning health problems related to environmental quality. In an attempt to address these issues, the U.S. Public Health Service's Bureau of Health Professions convened the Environmental Health Faculty/Employer Forum in Ann Arbor, Michigan on May 1-4, 1988. The participants included representatives from academia, all levels of government, industry and other employers. Fifty environmental health experts met and outlined a series of issues and problems along with recommended solutions and action steps regarding: job titles, scope of responsibilities, essential competencies, measures of academic program quality and personnel skill requirements, and continuing education needs of environmental health specialists. A hypothetical dialogue between an academician and an employer is presented.