Emergency and Terrorism Preparedness for Environmental Health Practitioners (ETP)

For more information on EHS resources for emergency preparedness see our Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) page. EHTER is a set of 10 training modules that focus on key environmental health issues and challenges for emergency response.

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Environmental health professionals play extremely important roles in all-hazards emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Their understanding of how disasters impact the environment is essential to protecting public health before, during, and after an emergency or disaster.

Carrying out the traditional functions of environmental health, such as safeguarding drinking water supplies, controlling disease-causing vectors, conducting food safety inspections, and ensuring safe and healthy building environments, may be challenging after extreme events. Practitioners must be able to anticipate, recognize, and respond to many issues. They need access to guidance, information, and resources that will assist them in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the adverse impacts of emergencies and disasters.

The ETP site provides a variety of disaster-related resources grouped according to specific environmental health-related categories and issues. Because environmental health is a system in which different areas are interconnected, there may be some overlap of resources in these categories. We hope the guidance and information in these links will help better prepare environmental health professionals to protect the public health and safety of their communities before, during, and after an emergency or disaster.