The Essentials for Healthy Homes Practitioners course brings together a diverse mix of housing and health professionals to promote practical and cost-effective methods for making homes healthier. A major strength of the course is the peer-to-peer learning that occurs between students. Through exercises, demonstrations and discussions, students better understand the roles, perceptions and challenges that their counterparts face. And they identify ways to coordinate their work to better protect residents from environmental and safety hazards in the home.
Environmental health professionals, especially registered environmental health specialists and registered sanitarians are the key people for healthy housing. They are trained in both the health and the environmental aspects of public health challenges.
Environmental health professionals will benefit from the course because it will help them:
- Better understand the connections between the housing code requirements and potential health impacts;
- Set priorities that maximize the health benefits to residents;
- More effectively convince property owner to resolve problems;
- Develop networks with other health and housing professionals who can help identify resources and potential solutions; and
- Gain insight into the perspectives of nurses, pest management professionals, environmental health specialists, and community-based organizations to help all be more effective.