what is an environmental sanitarian

8/10/2019 What is an Environmental Sanitarian

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What is an environmental sanitarian?

You may have heard the term, seen a job announcement, or read an article describingsomeone working as a sanitarian. Many people assume that sanitarians are the folks whocollect the garbage every week, or make sure that public buildings are kept clean. While these

jobs are a very important part of proper sanitation, a sanitarian is a person who is an expert in public health and sanitation.

Back in 1855, a man named John Snow proposed the revolutionary idea that a choleraepidemic occurring in London might be related to a contaminated well that people weredrinking from. Authorities were reluctant to believe him until they put a lock on the well andthe cholera epidemic went away. Since that time Snows idea, that maintaining a healthycommunity can directly affect the incidence of disease, has become a founding principle of

public health. Sanitarians are the modern- day John Snows, working to prevent you fromgetting sick because of your environment.

What do environmental sanitarians do?

You probably already have some idea of what an environmental sanitarian does, but you maycall them health inspectors. In the media, environmental sanitarians are usually showninspecting restaurants for pests, rotting food, or food service workers with poor hygiene.Most of the day-to-day inspections are not always as dramatic or funny. While environmentalsanitarians do look for the things shown in the media, they also make sure that restaurantsstore and prepare the food properly and take time educate food service workers about foodsafety. (The same food safety principles are also important in your own home. Check out theFood Protection section of our website for more information about what you can do to ensureyour food is safe.)

While food protection is one of the most well-known functions of an environmentalsanitarian, there are many other parts to the job. Environmental sanitarians are involved in so

many things there is simply not enough space to cover all of it here.

Local environmental public health (EPH) practitioners areresponsible for a comprehensive and diverse set of services andactivities. Larry Gordon, the former president of the American Public

Health Association (APHA), defines the practice of localenvironmental public health in this way:

Environmental public health practitioners are involved not only ininspections, but perhaps more importantly in surveillance, warnings,

permitting, grading, developing compliance schedules and variances,risk assessment, risk communication, public information, exposureevaluation, seeking injunctions and other legal remedies,embargoing, sampling for analyses, education, consultation,

community networking, problem prioritization, policy development, marketing the values andbenefits of environmental public health, plan and design review and approval, and

epidemiology.


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As Larry Gordon states, the true day-to-day practice of environmental public health coversan extremely comprehensive and diverse set of services and activities. In Maryland, eachcounty is unique and practices environmental public health in very different ways. Due tovariations in EPH programs from county to county, for the purpose of the assessment, the

Profile project was organized into ten major EPH program divisions as listed in the

[following] figure.

(Taken from the Profile of Maryland Environmental Health Practice, THE JOHNSHOPKINS CENTER FOR EXCELLENCE IN COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTALHEALTH PRACTICE February 2005)

In Howard County, the Bureau of Environmental Health provides almost all of the servicesoutlined in the Hopkins report. Within the Bureau there are three programs: Food Protection,Well and Septic, and Community Hygiene. To find out more about the services each of these

programs provide click on the links on the left side of this screen.

An article in the Baltimore Sun in June 2007, profiled one of the Howard CountySanitarians in the Community Hygiene Program. Many people are surprised to hear thatsanitarians (or health inspectors) are involved in such a "broad range" of activities. You canread a copy of the article and find out a little bit more about what it is like to be a sanitarian

by clicking here .
http://www.howardcountymd.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=4294969357http://www.howardcountymd.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=4294969357http://www.howardcountymd.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=4294969357http://www.howardcountymd.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=4294969357


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what is an environmental sanitarian

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