Advanced Certificate in Environmental Health
This online certificate trains you to make an impact on our most important environmental issues.
Environmental concerns have become more urgent over the past few decades. It’s clear that the state of the environment is strongly linked to public health and the health of our communities. The Flint Michigan water crisis, extreme California wildfires and superstorms like Sandy, are all examples of environmental events that public health officials manage and a certificate in environmental health can help you with. Legal, socioeconomic and political forces are also at play and greatly impact our environmental situation.
The Environmental Health Certificate program gives you the tools necessary to detect and alleviate environmental threats to human health. After completing the program, you’ll be ready to work with federal, state and local agencies to address public health and the environment.
Our faculty includes internationally-recognized practitioners and scholars with significant research and healthcare experience.
What Can I Do with an Environmental Health Certificate?
This certificate program is designed to give public health professionals and M.P.H. candidates a detailed exploration of current environmental challenges. With this certificate, you can better understand your specialization through the lens of environmental health.
For example, a policy advisor with an M.P.H. might use this knowledge to guide businesses or the government to address pollution management. A biostatistician can track data over time and analyze correlations between toxins and illness. If you’re interested in building a more sustainable and healthier future through your discipline, this program will empower you with the necessary knowledge to address environmental concerns.
How to Apply
If you're a new student, not enrolled in the NYMC MPH, you'll apply through the School of Public Health Application Services, SOPHAS.
If you're currently enrolled at NYMC, please visit the registrar's office on the portal and complete the form there.
Environmental Health Certificate Curriculum
Required Courses (12 Credits):
ENVM 5001: Environmental Influences on Human Health
This survey of the major environmental determinants of human health covers physical, chemical and biological sources of exposure; routes of exposure in humans; etiology of environmental disease and mortality; and the complexities of environmental public policy. Topics include airborne pollution, contaminated water and food, solid and hazardous waste, and risk assessment as a tool for regulation. Students have the opportunity to tour a local public works facility.
ENVM 6026: Public Health and Water Quality
This course addresses drinking water and waste water systems from a public health perspective and closely examines the water quality regulations impacting these two public works areas. The course provides an historical overview and includes discussion of the health effects of water-related diseases. Water quality criteria, water standards, regulations and physical-chemical technologies are examined, along with regulatory monitoring and reporting, through the review of case studies. Watershed and reservoir management, protection and storage, and household plumbing are also examined. Field trips are arranged.
ENVM 6009: Air Pollution
This course explores air pollution in terms of measurements and control, pollutant dispersion, air quality standards and health effects. The legal and enforcement aspects of air pollution control and the nature and quantity of atmospheric emission from vehicles, incinerators and specific industries are reviewed.
ENVM 6042: Public Health Risk Assessment
This course will provide a basic understanding of the use of risk assessment principles in public health decision-making as it relates to exposure from environmental chemicals. The course will include the basic principles, concepts and applications of risk assessment, including exposure assessment, hazard identification, dose-response evaluation, risk management, risk communication and uncertainty/variability. The major goal of the course is to introduce students to the real world applications of environmental human health risk assessment.
Select one from the courses listed below (3 credits):
ENVM 6017: Pollution and Waste Management
Principal man-made contaminants of air, water, and soil stemming from habitats, transportation, industry, and agriculture are examined. Also reviewed are water and sewage treatment, recycling of resources, methods of treatment and disposal of solid waste, and control and preventive measures designed to alleviate the adverse effects of hazardous chemicals.
ENVM 6027: Environmental Law and Management
This course provides an overview of the applicable legal processes designed to address public health and environmental concerns. The goal of environmental law is to achieve safe water, air and the environment. NYMC Faculty and Distinguished Environmental Legal Experts will guide this course from the inception and historical basis of environmental law through the methods employed for functional execution of the statutes and regulations at the Federal, State and Local levels. Special focus is assigned to the projected evolution of legal processes needed looking forward at 21st century environmental issues.
ENVM 6048: Children and the Environment
This course will introduce students to the importance and effects of environmental exposures in early life on health and development. A central focus of this course is the discovery of, mechanisms underlying, and the prevention of diseases in children that are associated with exposure to harmful contaminants in the environment. A brief introduction to developmental toxicology and the influence of environmental exposures in early life on health and development across the entire human life span with an emphasis on “windows of toxicity” will be presented. How healthy environments protect children’s health and nurture growth and development will also be discussed.
