Purpose
After completing Competency #9, you will be able to identify the limitations of the public health assessment (PHA) investigation, formulate conclusions about whether the site poses a public health hazard, and explain the reasons behind your conclusions, including how likely it is for exposed populations to experience negative health effects. You will also be able to develop recommendations and public health actions based on your conclusions.
Courses and Training Videos
Modules
- Putting It All Together Module (In Progress) - In this online module, you will learn how to develop the conclusions, recommendations, and public health action plan for the health assessment. You will also learn how to develop and release written PHA documents in an appropriate format.
- The "Putting It All Together Training Module" is a supplement to the Online Public Health Assessment Training (PHAT). Remember, PHAT is a series of online and interactive modules that explain the fundamentals of the PHA process.
Guidance
Public Health Assessment Guidance Manual (PHAGM)
PHAGM describes methods and resources that you, as a health assessor can use to evaluate environmental exposures associated with environmental contamination. For this competency, please review the PHAGM Section titled “Putting It All Together.”
- Overview of Limitations, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Public Health Actions - Study this section of PHAGM for an overview on how to present the conclusions, recommendations, and public health actions resulting from the evaluations conducted during the PHA process.
- Evaluating Limitations - Study this section of the PHAGM guide to learn how to evaluate potential limitations at your site. You will learn how to describe these limitations, determine if they could impact your conclusions, and identify recommendations to address them.
- Developing Conclusions - Study this PHAGM section to learn how to develop hazard category conclusions during the PHA process, and how to assign a conclusion category to your findings.
- Determining Recommendations and Developing a Public Health Action Plan - In this section, you will find criteria to help you determine what follow-up actions should be recommended to protect public health.
Hazard Category Guidance
In this document you will learn about the hazard categories used in ATSDR public health documents. You will also learn how to format and present PHA conclusions followed by a description of the basis for those conclusions. You can find this document on the PHAST resource page under the Health Assessment Resources category. To gain access to PHAST, send a request to phast@cdc.gov
- ATSDR Public Health Advisory Procedures - This document describes the procedures ATSDR follows when a release of hazardous substances poses an immediate and substantial danger to public health and welfare.