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Section 1 Creating & Disseminating
Section 1: Creating & Disseminating the EH Needs Assessment
One of the major objectives of the grant SPTHB received was to create and disseminate an Environmental Health and Hazards Needs Assessment to our Tribal partners. The goal of the EH Needs Assessment was to incorporate as many Tribal specific environmental health questions as possible into a survey that would take under 30 minutes to complete.
We wanted a comprehensive document that looked at which environmental health hazards may be present in the individual communities and what current policies and procedures are in place to address, respond to, and mitigate these hazards. In addition, we wanted to know how knowledgeable community members and the workforce were about the hazards present. The assessment also aimed to open discussions and collaborations regarding the environmental health of our participants.
One document that was essential in creating our needs assessment was the Southern Area Health Education Center & NM Department of Health Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau’s Community Environmental Health Assessment Toolbox for New Mexico (2004). In this document, you will find many links, tables, examples assessment questions, and resources for creating your own document.
Another document that SPTHB utilized in creating the needs assessment was NACCHO’s Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health (PACE EH) Guidebook. In this document, it listed 13 tasks in the methodology section to focus on while creating an environmental health assessment:
