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Value of Environmental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Story From Indian Country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2022

Stephen Robert Piontkowski ,
Braden Nicole Hickey ,
Charles David Woodlee  and
Kelly Marie Taylor
Stephen Robert Piontkowski*
Affiliation:
Senior Environmental Health Specialist, Division of Environmental Health Services, Office of Environmental Health and Engineering, Indian Health Service, Rockville, Maryland, USA
Braden Nicole Hickey
Affiliation:
Environmental Health Specialist, Taos Service Unit, Santa Fe District, Division of Environmental Health Services, Office of Environmental Health and Engineering, Albuquerque Area Indian Health Service, Taos, New Mexico, USA
Charles David Woodlee
Affiliation:
Institutional Environmental Health Program Manager, Division of Environmental Health Services, Office of Environmental Health and Engineering, Indian Health Service, Rockville, Maryland, USA
Kelly Marie Taylor
Affiliation:
Director, Division of Environmental Health Services, Office of Environmental Health and Engineering, Indian Health Service, 5600 Fishers Lane, MS: 10N14C, Rockville, Maryland, USA
*
Corresponding author: Stephen Robert Piontkowski, Email: stephen.piontkowski@ihs.gov
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Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic challenged not only the health-care industry, but also the public health infrastructure in new and wide-ranging ways. Environmental health (EH) professionals have proven to be an essential component of the interdisciplinary public health solution required to prevent, respond, and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian Health Service’s Division of Environmental Health Services is a community-based program offering a broad scope of environmental health services and technical assistance. Significant COVID-19 workload activities were recorded from March 2020 through March 2021. A total of 62.7% of the Division’s federal staff completed a 24-question survey in February/March 2021. Primary roles relating to community-based EH, institutional EH, and incident command system support/teams became apparent. Results indicated Division of Environmental Health Services staff provided critical leadership and used their established, trusted, interdisciplinary partnerships to help ensure critical resources and services were available in Indian Country.

Keywords

COVID-19coronavirusSARS-CoV-2environmental healthAmerican Indian/Alaska NativeIndian
Type
Report from the Field
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 17 , 2023 , e287
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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References

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