AEHAP Progress Report 2013 Annual Meeting Yalonda Sinde, Executive Director

 The Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs (AEHAP) was founded in 1999 to promote, support and enhance National Environmental Health Science & Protection Accreditation Council (EHAC) accredited programs.  Our mission is to support environmental health education to ensure the optimal health of people and the environment.  AEHAP is funded through a Cooperative Agreement (CA) with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AEHAP just applied for renewal of this CA for

 AEHAP helps to increase the workforce shortage by promoting, increasing and supporting environmental health science academic programs.

◦ Student Recruitment Support ◦ Diversity Enhancement ◦ Advocacy for EH Academic Programs & Funding ◦ Mentoring programs interested in accreditation. ◦ Creating Partnerships to Raise the Profile of EHAC Programs ◦ Marketing Initiatives ◦ Workforce Research ◦ Employer Partnerships

Promoting EH programs through marketing initiatives: To date, AEHAP has created and printed 5,000 copies of outreach materials for distribution to EHAC accredited programs, high schools and community colleges. AEHAP exhibits at 2-4 conferences a year and networks with colleges and universities across the country.

 AEHAP maintains an advertisement on Facebook and promotes environmental health career videos on You Tube in order to promote EHAC programs and attract new students.  AEHAP promotes eh careers on And through a new promotional video on our website at aehap.org/

AEHAP assigns faculty mentors to programs seeking accreditation. Currently there are 20 programs who have expressed an interest in applying for accreditation in the next five years. AEHAP recruits new programs through exhibiting, mailings and e-marketing. While overall the mentoring program is resulting in 1-2 new programs being accredited per year, the program needs some improvements to avoid programs applying who are truly not ready. Now, after mentoring is completed, we will ensure that any program interested in accreditation is first approved by the EHAC undergraduate and graduate co chairs before applying. Mentoring Accreditation Candidates

 NSF International Scholarship: AEHAP partners with NSF to award a $3,500 scholarship for a student summer internship.  Student Research Competition: Annual $500 scholarship and travel support to present research at the annual NEHA conference.  Links to scholarship and internship opportunities: AEHAP sends faculty information about internships and scholarships for students and maintains a database of opportunities on our website.

 EHAC Graduates Association – Job bank, online forum on the aehap.org website  AEHAP Student Assembly (ASA) was created by AEHAP to support our best recruiters—current students in EHAC programs. ASA is comprised of students from EH clubs who can apply for $500 awards for recruitment projects 2010 ASA meeting at NEHA.

 AEHAP is a member of the National Environmental Health Partnership Council a group started by CDC to serve as a unified voice for educating the public about environmental health and for jointly supporting EH initiatives.  Employers: AEHAP has prepared outreach materials speaking to employers to encourage them to

 AEHAP is also making connections with key funders of food safety and protection initiatives in order to help promote EHAC programs as qualified partners in federal efforts to improve our food safety system. The primary goal is to secure grant funds for EHAC programs to serve as advisors and trainers for those seeking credentials in food safety.

 AEHAP is in the process of developing a course clearinghouse in order to help link schools with courses needed to meet EHAC accreditation guidelines. here are a number of schools who want to become accredited but they do not have the resources to offer all the required EHAC courses.  AEHAP could help fill this void by creating a method for students to take these courses via AEHAP’s online course clearinghouse.

AEHAP provides support to programs, students and graduates AEHAP promotes EHAC programs and EH Careers. AEHAP collects data from EHAC graduates and from accredited programs AEHAP creates partnerships that support EHAC faculty, students and field of EH.

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