Key Environmental Health Competencies for Rural Primary Care Providers: Executive Summary and Competency Guide

摘要

Providing health care that considers environmental determinants of health, environmental impact on health, and outcomes attributed to environmental issues is complex due to the need for providers to be competent not only in social and health sciences, but also in environmental health concepts. Primary health care providers in rural communities must be able to assess community environmental needs, perform problem analysis, program planning and implementation, and develop evaluation strategies. However, few primary health care providers are trained in environmental health conditions and history taking, even though poor environmental quality is estimated to be directly responsible for a proportion of preventable ill health in the world. The integration of environmental health competencies into current and future entry level and professional continuing education programs for rural primary care providers will be an essential policy direction. In March of 2009, a consensus conference was held in Washington, D.C. with 10 key experts from environmental health, public health, rural health, and specific key primary care disciplines to develop the Key Environmental Competencies for Rural Primary Care Providers guide.