A key component of public health, environmental public health focuses on preventing and controlling human diseases caused or impacted by our environment. Many aspects of our environment, both built (pools, sidewalk, and park access) and natural (water, air, soil, and food), can impact our health.
Environmental public health professionals work to prevent disease and create healthy environments that promote well-being, fostering healthy, and safe communities by ensuring the safety of what we eat, breathe, touch, and drink. Statewide activities focus on prevention, preparedness, and education through routine monitoring, outreach, surveillance, and sampling of facilities and other environments that may contribute to injuries and the occurrence or transmission of disease.
The Florida Department of Health in Okaloosa County’s Environmental Health branch is dedicated to safeguarding and assuring a healthy community. We provide permitting, inspections, and surveillance services.
We are responsible for monitoring conditions within the community that could present a threat to health and safety of the public. Through a staff of trained professionals working throughout the community each day, the program has a significant role in monitoring the health status of the community and controlling those problems that may affect health.