Georgia Environmental Health Workforce Development and Capacity Building Initiative to Advance Conformance With The Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards.

Project Summary: The DPH EH Section Food Service Program proposes to partner with Georgia's 18Public Health District's Environmental Health offices, DPH Acute Disease Epidemiology Section, DPH EHSection Evaluation Support Program, DPH Office of Workforce Development and Training, DPH EHSection Tourist Accommodation Program, Georgia Department of Agriculture, and the University ofGeorgia's Department of Foods and Nutrition Cooperative Extension Service to assess and evaluatetraining needs, and provide training courses to focus on reduction of risk factors and promote activemanagerial control of the risk factors for foodborne illness.In 2009, the Georgia Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Section's management and theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Environmental Health used theEnvironmental Public Health Performance Standards (EnvPHPS) to conduct an assessment of Georgia'sEnvironmental Health (EH) programs and operations within the framework of the Ten EssentialEnvironmental Health Services. This statewide assessment identified a need for monitoring andevaluation improvements which substantially supported the EH Section's implementation of a statewidedatabase for collecting, monitoring, and analyzing inspection reports. This database is known as theEnvironmental Health Information System (EHIS). The EHIS system allows the Food Service Program andother statewide Environmental Health programs to collect electronic inspection report data for themonitoring, assessment, and comparative analysis of risk factor incidence and trends, to evaluatereports for accuracy and consistency, and to generate data to inform policy decisions. The EHIS is a webaccessed database that supports the missions of the Georgia's DPH Environmental Health Section officesby providing a central point for collecting, storing, analyzing, and reporting about the work performed inall of the EH services. The EHIS is also supplying data to other State agencies for use in various localprojects, including GIS mapping of onsite sewage systems with challenged waterways, well locations foremergency preparedness, and community planning. Currently, the Environmental Health Section's EHISsystem receives inspection report data from 132 counties and 16 additional counties will be added tothe system in the near future. The majority of the counties (more than 30%) uses a field client (offline)and synchronizes inspection reports into the system. Inspection report data is obtained from publicwebpage postings or search portals for counties that are not currently using the system. Using the EHISsystem, the EH Section has established a performance metric to track CDC's top five foodborne illnessrisk factors.