A school of public health responds to the pandemic: A case study from Washington D.C.

The emergence of COVID-19 immediately affected higher education, and the closure of campuses at the start of the pandemic in March of 2020 forced educational institutions to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. Schools of public health faced challenges not only of shifting to remote learning and work environments, but also uniquely redirecting public health research and service efforts toward COVID-19. This paper offers a case study of how the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University (GWSPH), the only school of public health in the nation's capital, initially adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a modified version of the Public Health Preparedness and Response Core Competency Model created by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we analyze how GWSPH worked in three areas-research, education, service/operations. We reviewed this initial response across four domains: model leadership; communication and management of information; planning and improving practice; and protecting worker (and student) health and safety. The adaptation of the model and the analysis of GWSPH's initial response to the pandemic can be useful to other schools of public health and health sciences in the United States and beyond, in preparing for all hazards. We hope that such analysis also informs the current concerns of schools such as return to in-person education as well as planning for future public health crises.

Children's vulnerability to toxic chemicals: a challenge and opportunity to strengthen health and environmental policy.

A key policy breakthrough occurred nearly twenty years ago with the discovery that children are far more sensitive than adults to toxic chemicals in the environment. This finding led to the recognition that chemical exposures early in life are significant and preventable causes of disease in children and adults. We review this knowledge and recommend a new policy to regulate industrial and consumer chemicals that will protect the health of children and all Americans, prevent disease, and reduce health care costs. The linchpins of a new US chemical policy will be: first, a legally mandated requirement to test the toxicity of chemicals already in commerce, prioritizing chemicals in the widest use, and incorporating new assessment technologies; second, a tiered approach to premarket evaluation of new chemicals; and third, epidemiologic monitoring and focused health studies of exposed populations.

Managing pesticide chronic health risks: U.S. policies.

This paper provides an overview of U.S. government pesticide risk management efforts over time and in recent years, relevant to chronic health risks of pesticides. Pesticides are in widespread usage in the U.S. With hundreds of active ingredients and thousands of products on the market, management of pesticide risks has been a daunting challenge. The first legislation providing federal authority for regulating pesticides was enacted in 1910. With the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and amendments to the pesticide law in 1972, the federal government was for the first time given the authority to regulate health and environmental risks of pesticides. However, older pesticide risks were not addressed until legislation was enacted in 1988, requiring "reregistration" and 1996, requiring that pesticide food standards are safe for children. In result, the U.S. has seen an expansion of development of pesticide products that are registered as "reduced risk" or are biologicals. Additionally a large number of older pesticides have been cancelled or reduced from the market and/or from individual food uses. Through biomonitoring data, the U.S. may now be seeing trends in reduction of exposure to certain pesticides, the organophosphate insecticides. However, pesticide sales data through 2001 do not provide evidence for such trends.