One-Week Training Programme Starts on the “Environmental Health’

By 121 News

Chandigarh 31^st August:- School of Public Health, PGI, started a one-week training programme on the "Environmental Health'. The training programme is introduced under the flagship of Department Health Research (DHR), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH & FW) to develop the skills of participants through intensive training programme for improving public health in the country. The training aim to induce the thought process of the participants to expand their knowledge to recognise and solve the environment health issues in their region. Despite a huge response, only seventeen candidates from different region of the country were selected for the current training. The key topic covered in the training includes Health & Sustainable Development, Ecosystem & Human Health, Urban Environment & Health, Air Pollution, Water & Sanitation, Radiation, Noise Pollution, Environmental Pollution & Toxicology, Environmental Protection & Legislation, Environment Impact Assessment, Health impact of Energy Choice including Current Issues & Challenges related to Environmental Health.

The training programme was inaugurated by Prof. Rajesh Kumar, Head, School of Public Health, PGIMER and he highlighted that DHR has launched this health research scheme to provide advanced training to health research personnel in cutting edge research areas concerning health to improve public health in the country. He stressed that such training programme can play an important role in technical skill transfer to the junior to middle level faculty & scientists, environment and public health researchers for better health and quality of life.

Dr. Ravindra Khaiwal, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Organizing Secretary of the event stressed on the need of better understanding of health issues related to various environmental pollutants. He further mentioned that 24% of total death burden in India is due to environmental factor, resulting over 27 Lakh deaths every year. Hence, it is important to build the research capacity in the area of Environmental Health to reduce the burden of disease and disability.

The current Environmental Health training programme is in line with the series of training programme covered under DHR scheme earlier onWater, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) and Air Pollution & Health at School of Public Health, PGI, Chandigarh. The training programme is being facilitated by Dr. Somvir Bajar, Manu Jindal and Vijay Kumar.