National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Training Program

The Emory-NIEHS Worker Training Program, based in the Department of Emergency Medicine, is delivering education and training for the identification and management of persons with serious communicable diseases across a variety of occupational sectors. Stakeholders in the state and federal government, as well as national partners from among professional associations and industry, are working collaboratively to increase the availability of these programs in the emergency responder, frontline healthcare and public health practitioner workforces.

The specific aims of the Emory-NIEHS Worker Training Program are to:

Develop and implement an occupational safety and infection control training program which interfaces with existing regional and national programs that have nationally and internationally proven subject matter expertise and experience working with Ebola and other serious communicable pathogens
Disseminate environmental infection control and hazard recognition education and training aimed at workers who may be at risk for exposure in the emergency responder, healthcare and public health workplaces
Establish an enduring platform for collaboration with regional and national partners, with the aim of developing and targeting safety and health training for workers in various occupational settings that can be delivered both proactively by way of a standing program as well as contemporaneously by way of “just-in-time” training

The target populations for training include workers in the emergency responder, frontline healthcare facility and public health workplaces. The program focuses on workers employed in ASPR Region 4, which includes the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, but our program also serves as a platform for wider dissemination to constituents of our national partners and the broader national workforce.