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Environmental Health Disaster Management
Course - endorsed by IFEH

Environmental health professionals across the world have a critical function in mitigating the risk of disasters. Damage to environmental health infrastructure, services and practices often influence the level of suffering, loss of life and ill-health after a disaster. Many of the risks associated with disasters such as those relating to drinking water, shelters, overcrowding, food safety, wastewater, disease-causing vectors, solid waste and hazardous materials fall within existing roles and duties of environmental health professionals. Each disaster has unique challenges and additional knowledge and skills are required.

The Environmental Health Disaster Management Course has been developed under the leadership of Dr Peter Davey the Programme Coordinator at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia in association with Tim Hatch, Alabama, US and Ben Ryan, Cairns, Australia. The content is guided by the successful Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) course delivered by CDC.

IFEH is in support of the aims of the Environmental Health and Disaster Management Course (EHDM) and on that basis the IFEH has went into an MOU agreement with the Coordinator of the EHDM Course. It should be noted as stipulated in the MoU agreement that while the IFEH endorses the course all responsibility in regard to the course rely with the EHDM course coordinator.

SCHEDULED EHDM COURSES

FUTURE EHDM COURSES
As part of building environmental health capacity globally, the EHDM course would welcome any opportunity to work with member organisations and individual members to deliver future courses in all parts of the World. For further information, please contact one of the following:

Dr Peter Davey
Leading EHDM Programme Coordinator
UNISDR Certified Trainer

Email: peter.davey@griffith.edu.au

Tim Hatch
EHDM Programme Co-Coordinator
UNISDR Certified Trainer

Email: tim.hatch@adph.state.al.us

PREVIOUS EHDM COURSES

EHDM TRANING COURSE IN GENERAL:

Environmental Health Disaster Management Course

Environmental health professionals across the world have a critical function in mitigating the risk of disasters. Damage to environmental health infrastructure, services and practices often influence the level of suffering, loss of life and ill-health after a disaster. Many of the risks associated with disasters such as those relating to drinking water, shelters, overcrowding, food safety, wastewater, disease-causing vectors, solid waste and hazardous materials fall within existing roles and duties of environmental health professionals. Each disaster has unique challenges and additional knowledge and skills are required.

The Environmental Health Disaster Management Course has been developed under the leadership of Dr Peter Davey the Programme Coordinator at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia in association with Tim Hatch, Alabama, US and Ben Ryan, Cairns, Australia.
The content is guided by the successful Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) course delivered by CDC.

The course recognises environmental health professionals are in the best position to assess and address the impact of disasters on public health due to their skill set and population-based focus. Participants will be provided with the skills and knowledge required to ensure they can adequately prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the adverse environmental health impacts of disasters. The course is also designed to increase awareness of what environmental health professionals can offer the community, public and private sectors. All of which is vital for building resilience and protecting livelihoods before and after a disaster.

Course Structure
The course addresses the need for environmental health and other professionals to increase their education and training in disaster management. The course covers nine core topics (see below) and concludes with an exercise to demonstrate the relevance of these topics in the disaster setting.

Core Topics

• Disaster Management
• Drinking Water
• Food Safety
• Wastewater
• Shelters
• Vector Control
• Solid Waste and Hazardous Materials
• Building Assessments
• Responder Safety

Target Audience
Environmental health and disaster professionals from IFEH member organisations who plan to broaden their understanding of the role environmental health has during the preparedness and response phases of disaster management. Participants can be from the local, state, federal, international and private sectors.

Delivery Mode
The course is delivered face-to-face and can be tailored to meet local needs. It can be delivered as a two-day short course or over four-days with an additional day for the train-the-trainer component. Please note: the four-day course must be completed prior to attending the train-the-trainer component.

Course Facilitators
The courses are facilitated by Dr Peter Davey (Australia), Ben Ryan (Australia) and Tim Hatch (USA) with local (in-country) and international presenters working in partnership to deliver the content.

Dr Peter Davey, (PhD, FEHA)
Programme Coordinator, Griffith University, Brisbane Australia
Hon Vice president IFEH

Peter has a keen interest in developing a global environmental health workforce that is flexible and well supported. He has worked and conducted research into the various aspects of environmental health across the world.
He is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith University, Director of International Research and Projects Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development for Indonesia, visiting Professor University of Indonesia, Deputy – Director Centre of Environment and Population Health and Secretary Australian Chapter – Alliance for Healthy Cities.

Tim Hatch, (MPA, REHS),
Alabama, US

Tim has spent his career responding to disasters across southern USA. This has included Hurricane Ivan (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), Kentucky Ice Storm (2009), widespread water outage in rural Alabama (2009), Gulf Oil Spill (2010) and Alabama Tornadoes (2011). He is the Planning and Logistics Director, Center for Emergency Preparedness, Alabama Department of Public Health; President of the Alabama Public Health Association and an accredited trainer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Tim is also the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention subject matter expert for the Environmental Health Training for Emergency Response (ETHER) and Healthcare Leadership courses delivered across the USA. He has made it his personal goal to share his experiences and research to strengthen preparedness and response capacities of environmental health and disaster professionals across the world.