“Back to the Future”: Time for a Renaissance of Public Health Engineering

Richard J. Gelting, Steven C. Chapra, Paul E. Nevin, David E. Harvey and David M. Gute
Additional contact information
Richard J. Gelting: Division of Global Health Protection, Center for Global Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30329 USA
Steven C. Chapra: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Paul E. Nevin: Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
David E. Harvey: Division of Sanitation Facility Construction, Indian Health Service, Rockville, MD 20857, USA
David M. Gute: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-8

Abstract: Public health has always been, and remains, an interdisciplinary field, and engineering was closely aligned with public health for many years. Indeed, the branch of engineering that has been known at various times as sanitary engineering, public health engineering, or environmental engineering was integral to the emergence of public health as a distinct discipline. However, in the United States (U.S.) during the 20th century, the academic preparation and practice of this branch of engineering became largely separated from public health. Various factors contributed to this separation, including an evolution in leadership roles within public health; increasing specialization within public health; and the emerging environmental movement, which led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with its emphasis on the natural environment. In this paper, we consider these factors in turn. We also present a case study example of public health engineering in current practice in the U.S. that has had large-scale positive health impacts through improving water and sanitation services in Native American and Alaska Native communities. We also consider briefly how to educate engineers to work in public health in the modern world, and the benefits and challenges associated with that process. We close by discussing the global implications of public health engineering and the need to re-integrate engineering into public health practice and strengthen the connection between the two fields.

Keywords: engineering; public health; curriculum proposals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/387/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/387/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:387-:d:201873

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().