ABSTRACT
The author discusses the need for environmental health (EH) professionals to push for the field's importance in public health, that was apparent during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as of 2022. Topics covered include EH's thrust toward clean air, food, and water and a safe and healthy setting for living, and its gold standard status in public health education. Also noted is the National Environmental Health Association's (NEHA) evolving marketing of the profession.
ABSTRACT
Brown expresses his gratitude to all the environmental health professionals who were the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental health professionals stepped up to the plate and performed a variety of tasks that provided their peers and the public with important insight into the value of their profession. Here, he stresses that as the world is reopening from the COVID- 19 pandemic, environmental health needs to seize the opportunity to educate the public, policy makers, and key stakeholders of the technical, scientific expertise required to become a Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian (REHS/RS).