The CHAIRMAN. I attended a graduation exercise in this field. Some were dentists in the class, but very few. I thought they were dental hygienists. There are hygienists of certain specified types?

Mrs. MCCAIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Doctor, and you two ladies for giving us information about your respective specialties. Our next witness is Mr. Nicholas Pohlit, executive director, National Environmental Health Association, Denver, Colo.

STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS POHLIT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION, DENVER, COLO.

Mr. POHLIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have you present your testimony today, Mr. Pohlit.

Mr. POHLIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, and Senator Dominick, as executive director of the National Environmental Health Association and managing editor of the Journal of Environmental Health, I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak in behalf of the Health Training Improvement Act of 1970.

I know that you are probably tired and hungry also, and so I will try to summarize my remarks.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be helpful to us. We have a number of other witnesses on the list.

Mr. POHLIT. I will try to speed things up for you.

The National Environmental Health Association is composed of professional, trained, environmental control personnel and has been in existence since 1937. It is the largest environmental health association in the country today.

What I would like to talk to you primarily about, Mr. Chairman, is the undergraduate area. This seems to be one of the biggest problems in the Nation today, and these are the people who are being recruited in the public health field to manage the environmental health programs.

These are the people who should have a specialty in the environmental corps area, even we start talking about an academic training. We have approximately 33 schools in the country today, and I can foresee that within the next 2 or 3 years we will probably double that figure.

What has really happened, though, in this Allied Health Professions Personnel Training Act since it has been in existence is that the schools have not been receiving their share of the funds, as I would see it from a biased standpoint.

It so happens that during the past fiscal year approximately $193,000 was given to these schools; that is, 19 of them really applied for it. When you average it out, it will come out to approximately $10,000 per school, which you know is just enough for janitorial help, and this is about it.

So we are trying to lick the problem of the environment, and this is almost impossible at the pace we are going in.

So I am saying here today that whatever can be done to enlarge on the type of appropriation that we are talking about here would be most appreciated by all of the taxpayers in the country.

Let me give you an example. I just happened to be up in Fairbanks, Alaska, last week, to attend an arctic conference up there and so I had an opportunity of being taken around by the director of environmental health of the city of Fairbanks, and I know the way this city is being planned, it is like many, many others throughout the Nation. It reminds me when I was in Adams County, Colo., where there just was not any good management whatsoever. This is the same thing that is happening in Alaska, one of our newest States, so I can see what type of dilemma we are facing today.

If we don't have trained people, we are lost, lost completely. It reminds me of the medical doctors, and the dentists and many, many others, but they seem to be getting more than their share of what is really intended for them.

It is just like in the Federal Government here where we have top people, but in the health field it is all run by the medical practitioners. What happens when we ask for any type of funding whatsoever for our schools, we are laughed at generally. This I must say has been happening during the past 13 years since I have been on this job.

To go a little bit further, I do want to point out that we have been in existence over 30 years now, and education has been one of our prime roles.

We do have sample curriculums and guidelines for establishing a program in the undergraduate area. We have established the National Accreditation Council to approve programs and to maintain surveillance and of accepted programs, and it is our speculation that we need at least 50,000 environmentalists by 1975. At the moment, we are only producing 150 well-trained environmentalists from these schools today.

To meet our needs of 1,500 graduates per year from environmental health programs, it will take approximately four and a half million dollars per year, plus an increase in facilities for another 33 schools which is estimated conservatively at $33 million just for physical facilities.

Staffing these new schools is placed at a cost of $75,000 per year for each school, and I must say, if you don't have a teaching staff there is no point of sending the students to the schools.

For five professional teaching specialists at each, if stipends of $1,000 were provided for 25 percent of the students enrolled, and there were a total enrollment in the programs of 6,600 students in classes. the need for support money would amount to $1,650.000 annually.

To proceed on a little further, I happened to be in Mississippi a year or so ago. I was able to recruit a Negro as director of environmental health. This is one of the most deprived areas in the country.

When I tried to recruit such an individual, it was almost impossible. I telephoned Dr. Ben Friedman, who is director of training with the Louisiana State Department of Public Health, and I asked him

whether he had any Negroes who were quite competent in the field, and he said, "No, we just don't train the Negroes."

This is the typical type of response that I received all over the Nation. But if we are to alleviate the conditions which we have in the rural areas of the South, along with the ghettos we need this type of trained person who can really get the job done and who knows how to work with this group.

Money is needed for these schools and I would like to mention to you just in what way it would be used.

That would be for classroom and laboratory facilities for field training, and for faculty, for student recruitment and for adequate living and tuition money for those students who need it.

Funds must be obtained to produce literature, audiovisual aids, manpower to recruit students from high schools and junior colleges. Of course, it is the same song and dance that you hear constantly but it is very, very important.

Again, when you realize the many, many areas that we are involved in, such as solid wastes, air, water, wastes, housing, urban environment, food and noise, recreation, occupational health, pesticides, insect control, and I could go, on and on, but these are just merely a few examples.

We do have a career ladder for these people going from the 2-year program, the associate degree program, through the doctoral program, and I think we could be well on our way, but we do need financial support from the Federal Government, which has been impossible to get up to this point to any degree.

I would appreciate any questions that you may have in reference to what is happening in our Nation, because I do feel I am current with what is happening, since I am traveling constantly.

I want to again thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Pohlit follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS POHLIT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION, DENVER, COLO.

In order to accomplish the goals set by President Nixon and the citizens of this country for a clean, healthful living environment, it is mandatory that we enlarge our manpower pool of professionally trained environmentalists who are knowledgeable in all facets of environmental needs. These people should not be merely biologists, zoologists, chemists, physicists, and engineers. They must be total-environment oriented.

Therefore, they must be trained in special undergraduate schools of environmental health which include courses in relating the natural and biological sciences with the social sciences and human inhabitation of the planet earth. Environmental quality management, as well as any other effective program of quality management or quality control, requires a body of qualified individuals to plan, administer, and implement the program and to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the program.

The present body of environmental health specialists has developed from the need for effective environmental quality management. Sanitarians and engineers have become key professionals in this program, with valuable assistance from the various laboratory disciplines, health educators, public health physicians, social and political scientists, to name a few.

One of the major problems associated with the lack of recognized, structured educational programs is almost total lack of recruitment into the field

of environmental health. Good environmental quality management cannot be achieved wthout a continuous input of new, qualified personnel to expand activities and to replace those who have retired or left the field. Few of those now working in environmental health entered college with any thought of a career in that field. Many were not aware of careers in the field until their senior year or even after graduation. The lack of formal education has deferred environmental control and has held it to emergency type programing, mainly because of lack of qualified personnel.

In an undergraduate course in Environmental Health, the basic public health training and indoctrination can be accomplished, with more specialized training relegated to the graduate program. Students majoring in environmental health during undergraduate education are more interested and conscientious students and better workers after graduation since they don't just stumble into an available job.

Persons receiving an undergraduate degree in environmental health can begin work immediately without the period of orientation and indoctrination required of graduates from other disciplines. In fact, employees with this type of training are perhaps better indoctrinated than those receiving orientation from the wide variety of programs offered by local health departments.

In addition, an undergraduate program in environmental health feeds the graduate school. Ninety percent of those who earn a bachelor's degree in environmental health stay in the field and about 40 percent subsequently earn a master of science, master of Public Health, or Doctor of Public Health degree. There is urgent and ever-increasing need for professional environmentalists. In most public health or environmental health agencies in this country, a bachelor's degree is required before a person is employed. At present, the supply of qualified persons does not meet the demand, but the supply could be increased measurably if undergraduate education was encouraged, fostered, and supported. Precedent has been established for undergraduate support of other allied health professions such as nurses, dental hygienists, occupational and physical therapists which are eligible for scholarship grants from federal funds. We believe consisted undergraduate education in environmental health should be encouraged by providing funds for expanding and improving present curricula and creating new curricula through the Allied Health Professions Personnel Training Act.

Today, our problems are more complex than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Then, control of communicable diseases was the main target of public health personnel, along with surveillance of food, milk, water, and the like. Today the problems of air pollution, solid wastes, housing, industrial hygiene, injury control, chemical and radiological contaminants, physical stresses such as noise, and emotional stresses of urban living and crowding may be more hazardous to the health and well being of the nation. Specialists, as well as ecologists are needed to handle these problems. In addition, regional planners and urban redevelopers must call upon the expertise of these new disciplines to minimize future environmental problems.

The National Environmental Health Association and its individual members have worked throughout the last 30 years to develop professional environmentalists and have been instrumental in establishing educational standards for undergraduate curricula in environmental health. Today we have a sample curriculum and guidelines for establishing such a program in undergraduate education. We have also established the National Accreditation Council to approve such programs and to maintain surveillance of accepted programs. There are 33 existing schools of environmental health leading to a bachelor's degree which are producing 150 environmentalists annually. The need is for ten times this number, and with a forecast of 50,000 environmentalists needed by 1975 every possible effort should be made to assist schools that have an undergraduate curriculum in the field of Environmental Health.

To meet the need of 1500 graduates per year from environmental health programs, it will take $42 million per year, plus an increase in facilities for another 33 schools which is estimated conservatively at $33 million just for physical facilities. Staffing these new schools is placed at a cost of $75,000 per year for each school, for five professional teaching specialists at each. If stipends of $1000 were provided for 25 percent of the students enrolled. and there were a total enrollment in environmental health programs of 6600

students (in four classes), the need for support money would amount to $1,650,000, annually. This means we must get from somewhere, $6 million annually, plus at least $33 million for new construction!

Since the April 22, 1970 Environmental Teach-ins, The National Environmental Health Association has received many inquiries from colleges and universities for information on programs in environmental health and for our suggested curriculum. More and more students from high schools and colleges are requesting information on careers in environmental control. Industry is being forced to employ environmental control personnel-manufacturing plants, power plants, mining companies, food service, and many other areas—and they will be attracting some existing environmentalists with higher salaries than they are getting in the public sector. On the other hand, many university graduates of today are ignoring industry with its acknowledged high salaries and are looking for careers with personal, rather than financial, satisfaction. The Health Training Improvement Act of 1970 (S. 3586) amends the Allied Health Professions Personnel Training Act of 1966 to establish the eligibility of new schools of medicine, dentistry, osteopathy, pharmacy, optometry, veterinary medicine and podiatry, for grants under existing programs. Schools of environmental health, however, have not received adequate funding. In the last fiscal year approximately $193,000 was divided among 19 schools for improving programs in environmental health. With an average of $10,158 going to each school, this might pay for one instructor, or a small amount of laboratory materials, but was rarely enough for any expansion or improvement, much less enough to recruit new students to the field.

We have the potential for a sufficient manpower pool since there are many, especially in the underprivileged groups, who want an education, and because of their background would be desirable workers in environmental health. Thousands of young persons in the ghettos and rural south know what the problems are. Who would be better, if trained, to cope with those problems. In order to develop this potential, we must have adequate funds for living, proper food and clothes, to create an environment for them whereby they can learn, graduate from high school, go to college of known quality and become valuable to the work force of America.

Money is needed for schools of undergraduate training in environmental health. Funds must be obtained for classroom and laboratory facilities, for field training, for faculty, and for student recruitment, and for adequate living and tuition money for those students who need it. Funds must be obtained to produce literature, audio-visual aids, and manpower to recruit students from high schools and junior colleges into undergraduate programs in environmental health.

Environmental health personnel are involved in the total health of man, not just the medical, nursing or engineering aspects, but all of these together and all other health phases in the environment. They protect man's health through control of such environmental factors as food, milk, air, water, radiation, metropolitan planning, accident prevention, pesticide control, hospital sanitation, communicable disease control, insect and rodent control, safe housing, industrial hygiene, sewage and waste disposal. In all of these areas, it is essential that the environmentalist have the necessary educational background to recognize the multiplicity of the problem. This is obtained only through the undergraduate program in environmental health.

The National Environmental Health Association, urges the federal government to cooperate to the end of developing new professional environmentalists by including "environmentalists and other environmental health personnel" inserted after-"allied health professions" in the first paragraph of the bill. It is also suggested that this be repeated in each place appropriate throughout the bill, such as Section 795 (a) and (a)(1), Section 796 (a) etc.; thereby, making our colleges and universities that have a curriculum in Environmental health at the Undergraduate area eligible for improvement grants.

We must take time to define the word, "environment." Actually it includes everything outside the human body that affects/directly or indirectly in any way. The environment, then, consists of a complex mixture of human and other living things, water, air, waste, food, chemicals, machines, buildings, sounds, and intangible stresses of all kinds. The concept of relationships or mutual influences that exist between the various known factors in the environment is