Considerations for Revising the Educational Content of Environmental Health: a Survey of Professors in the Field

The education system of any country is subject to fundamental change according to the wishes of society. The need for change in the health care system, medical education and other related sciences, including environmental health, has become increasingly evident in this country in recent years. In the present study, we investigated the revision of educational content in environmental health and the answers to the fundamental questions related to it.

The current study was cross-sectional and comprehensively evaluated at the national level with the participation of professors in the field of environmental health. The study involved 78 distinguished professors of environmental health, and a checklist was prepared and a survey was conducted to obtain their opinions. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS-22 software. The Friedman test was used to compare different areas.

The survey results show that 69.3% of the professors believe that the educational content in the field of environmental health in Iran is fundamentally different from that in developed countries. 89.8% of the distinguished professors believed that the aspects and conditions of environmental health in the country are significantly different from the first year of determining the content and curriculum in the field of environmental health. 96.2% of the distinguished professors of environmental health in the country thought that the expected skills included in the curricula of different levels of the field of environmental health should be revised. At the same time, 85.9% of the professors agreed that the monitoring of environmental pollutants that affect health is one of the most important topics in environmental health.

Based on the survey conducted among the professors of the country ‘s health faculties, it is necessary and useful to revise the definition of environmental health and its educational content to meet the needs of society, given the new conditions in the field of environmental health.