title: Children's Environmental Health Faculty Champions Initiative: a successful model for integrating environmental health into pediatric health care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pediatric medical and nursing education lack the environmental health content needed to properly prepare health care professionals to prevent, recognize, manage, and treat environmental exposure-related diseases. The need for improvements in health care professionals' environmental health knowledge has been expressed by leading institutions. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of programs that incorporate pediatric environmental health (PEH) into curricula and practice.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We evaluated the effectiveness of the National Environmental Education Foundation's (NEEF) Children's Environmental Health Faculty Champions Initiative, which is designed to build environmental health capacity among pediatric health care professionals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-eight pediatric health care professionals participated in a train-the-trainer workshop, in which they were educated to train other health care professionals in PEH and integrate identified PEH competencies into medical and nursing practice and curricula. We evaluated the program using a workshop evaluation tool, action plan, pre- and posttests, baseline and progress assessments, and telephone interviews.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the 12 months following the workshop, the faculty champions' average pretest score of 52% was significantly elevated (p < 0.0001) to 65.5% on the first posttest and to 71.5% on the second posttest, showing an increase and retention of environmental health knowledge. Faculty champions trained 1,559 health care professionals in PEH, exceeding the goal of 280 health care professionals trained. Ninety percent of faculty champions reported that PEH had been integrated into the curricula at their institution.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The initiative was highly effective in achieving its goal of building environmental health capacity among health care professionals. The faculty champions model is a successful method and can be replicated in other arenas.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Bonnie
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Leyla Erk
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: McCurdy
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Slavin
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Grubb
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D004782:Environmental Health / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000193:education*