Task 5 - Generate a List of IssuesOnce formed the EHAT was tasked with identifying priority environmental health issues to address through the implementation of action plans. In order to begin the dialogue concerning locally appropriate environmental health issues, a list of potential issues was developed. The list utilized a variety of sources including: a baseline EHAT knowledge assessment, interviews with ICPH staff, , The Health of Washington State, Washington State Department of Health, Environmental Health and Global Health Survey, UW, and the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Opinion Research. A comprehensive list of environmental health issues was generated from these resources for consideration by the assessment team.
In order to narrow the list of environmental health issues to a manageable size EHAT prioritized the list of issues by applying realistic criteria for use throughout the narrowing process.
1. Do you think the issue could represent a link between the environment and human health?
2. Do you think a large number of Island County residents care about this issue?
3. Is this issue relevant in Island County?
4. Is it realistic that a community could make a change with this issue?
EHAT members were initially asked to apply these criteria to the list of issues using a multi-vote. The voting process required each member of the team to identify their top five issues from the combined list in order of importance. The assignment of order to each vote weighted the outcome towards the issues on the top of each members voting card. The multi-vote reduced the number of potential environmental health issues down to 15.
Following the multi-vote, EHAT members were asked to apply a singular criteria to the remaining issues: where can EHAT make a difference in Island County to reduce the impact of that particular issue on the health of the community. This exercise further reduced the list to 7 issues.
Since the desired outcome of the process was to generate a manageable list of issues selected by the community, a weighted vote was applied to the remaining issues to reduce the final number to 4. Each EHAT members was given three votes to cast on the final list of 7 issues. Those votes could be spread across the issues or placed on a singular issue. This final vote resulted in the identification of the four top issues for EHAT consideration.
1. West Nile Virus 2. Arsenic in drinking water 3. Illegal dumping 4. Recreational land-use
Although the voting process was timely and cumbersome at times, it was important to ICPH to remove individual biases from the issue selection process and identify relevant, local environmental health issues that could be acted upon by community members resulting in a healthier community.
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