Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center, College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Quality & Safety Institute, Rochester Regional Health, Rochester, NY 14617, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Nov 5;18(21):11626. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182111626.
"Environmental Health Literacy" (EHL) is embraced as important for improving public health by preventing disability and disease from our environment. This study aimed to determine knowledge and skill items identified by Environmental Health (EH) professionals as being associated with EHL and to understand how these items rank by importance. Such a coordinated effort to tease out skills and knowledge needed for EHL had not previously been made. We utilized a mixed-methods approach of semi-structured interviews of 24 EH professionals and a quantitative survey with 275 EH professionals across the United States. Interviews identified 37 skill and 69 knowledge items, which were used to create the survey questions. Survey results indicate 32 knowledge items and six skill items considered essential by >50% of respondents where consensus was reached between professional groups (chi square test: > 0.05). We further identified six knowledge items, which >70% of EH professionals agreed were essential for EHL. The identification of these knowledge and skill items sets the stage for further research that includes exploring agreement with more diverse stakeholders, developing comprehensive measures of EHL and evaluation of methods and materials designed to improve EHL.
“环境健康素养”（EHL）被认为对于通过预防环境对人体造成的伤害和疾病来提高公众健康水平很重要。本研究旨在确定环境健康（EH）专业人员认为与 EHL 相关的知识和技能项目，并了解这些项目的重要性排名。以前没有进行过这样协调一致的努力来梳理 EHL 所需的技能和知识。我们采用了混合方法，对 24 名 EH 专业人员进行了半结构化访谈，并对美国各地的 275 名 EH 专业人员进行了定量调查。访谈确定了 37 项技能和 69 项知识项目，这些项目被用于创建调查问题。调查结果表明，有 32 项知识项目和 6 项技能项目得到了>50%的受访者的认可，并且专业群体之间达成了共识（卡方检验：>0.05）。我们进一步确定了 6 项知识项目，其中>70%的 EH 专业人员认为这些知识项目对于 EHL 是必不可少的。这些知识和技能项目的确定为进一步的研究奠定了基础，包括与更多不同利益相关者达成一致，开发 EHL 的综合衡量标准，以及评估旨在提高 EHL 的方法和材料。
