The types of jobs in public health engineering require a medical, technical or engineering background. Public health engineering involves the designing of tools, systems and public facilities to prevent people from being sick or injured. Most public health engineering jobs are found in government agencies, but there are private sector jobs as consultants and contractors, according to the Health Information Systems Coordinator.
Public Health Engineer
A public health engineer designs, reviews and approves construction plans for commercial and residential sites. They often design public and private sewage disposal and treatment systems. They may work on private water supply systems and industrial storm water management systems. Public health engineers must evaluate and approve construction plans to ensure compliance with county and state land management and sanitary codes. They conduct field inspections of water supplies, sewage treatment, disposal systems and related environmental health projects to assure compliance with local and state ordinances.
Public health engineers prepare engineering reports and correspondence regarding environmental health matters. They may assist in the initial training of sewage treatment plant and sewage disposal system workers. They need a working knowledge of the practices and techniques of sanitary treatment and public health engineering. They should have basic knowledge of public facility design and construction. They need the ability to understand and follow technical information, create complex written instructions and perform engineering computations.
Quality Improvement Manager
Quality improvement managers are responsible for the daily operations of quality programs. These may include clinical care, public health and community sanitation initiatives. They are responsible for hiring, training and evaluating all subordinate personnel. They develop and execute policies and procedures that support quality control and improvement inspection activities. They may track and trend clinical and community performance indicators in order to identify under-performing public health areas and programs.
Once problems are recognized and documented, they create corrective actions and recommended best practices that are sent to the target government program, facility or agency. They ensure that continuous quality improvement techniques are deployed to standardize indicators, collect quality related data, conduct root cause analysis and intervention implementations. They may conduct or participate in local, state and regional quality audits and program evaluations. They oversee the collaboration of monitoring programs to maintain the accuracy and consistency of quality data.
Environmental Health Manager
Environmental health managers may support the implementation of air, soil or water quality programs. They participate in field research, on-site evaluations and office preparations for grant proposals and funding. They may work for a state sponsored green energy program and review residential and commercial applications for funding, supplies and training. They research and evaluate private and non-profit programs that improve air, soil and water quality. They make recommendations to management regarding the benefits and outcomes of partnering with high performing programs.
They prepare reports for internal and external clients regarding program recommendations. They respond to inquiries from the public, industries, schools, businesses and government agencies. They participate in national and regional environmental quality organizations and programs. Most environmental health managers will have a bachelor’s degree engineering, public health and the natural or physical sciences. They may be expected to have a master’s degree in a related technical field with a few years of environmental experience.
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Jobs in Health Care Systems Design
The types of jobs in public health engineering also include healthy community design professionals who work with city and civic engineers to plan and improve practices for urban areas, neighborhoods and transportation corridors.