Launch of Environmental Public Health Week

Welcome to the seventh annual Environmental Public Health Week celebration. The celebration this year will run from Jan 18th to the 23rd. This year the theme is Hygiene - Back to the Basics.

As Environmental Public Health Professionals we all know the importance of a good foundation of knowledge in all the programs we work with. Whether dealing with food safety or sewage control, basic hygiene is always the starting point. The circumstances change with every program and sometimes even with each situation we encounter in a program but our work always revolves around educating and enforcing the basic fundamentals.

The phrase "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" has improved living conditions and subsequently health conditions throughout the centuries. The concept of cleaning your hands which leads to reduced contamination of foods and surfaces has drastically improved people's health over the centuries. Cover your cough, wash your hands, don't stick your fingers in your mouth, these basic rules are taught by every parent to their children. Why, because the message is simple yet effective. Basic hygiene works.

Environmental Public Health Week (EPHW) is our chance to promote to the general public, the continuum of environmental health issues we work with every day: food safety, drinking and recreational water quality, infection prevention and control, on-site wastewater disposal, indoor air quality, epidemiology, rabies control, vector borne diseases, tobacco reduction, communicable diseases and many other environmental health initiatives.

The introduction this year of the Environmental Public Health Week incentive has been one step forward in increasing the awareness of this event and our profession. I look forward to seeing the many and varied methods of promoting ourselves. This is our year to shine as leaders of Public Health.

John Cannan
Councilor, Health Promotion

CIPHI - Ontario Branch Executive Council