The role of the environmental health officer following Malta's accession to the European Union

Abstract

Following Malta's accession to the European Union in 2004, the number of demands on the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) or as commonly known up to recently the Health Inspector, has increased, both in respect of quantity and quality. Environmental Health Officers are trained as "generalist practitioners" across the range of the fifteen basic environmental health activities and therefore occupy a key position in the environmental health service. The study was performed to analyse if the current structure is adequate to cater for these new demands, if the EHO is adequately trained and if there is a need to change towards specialization. The literature review is based on the research carried out regarding the role of the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) in various countries within the European Union. The research was focused on specialization of this health professional. The literature review was compared with studies about specialization in nurses and doctors. The hypothesis theory for this study was that the specialization of the EHOs is the solution for the demands created following the accession. To test this hypothesis a self-completion questionnaire was utilized as a research tool for this study. The study was carried out amongst the whole population of the EHOs. The respondents were divided into the Grades of EHO, SEHO, APEHO, PEHO, and SPEHO. The response rate was 78% and the participants were 39 Males and 21 Females. Most of the participants were in the grade of SERO. In the study there was agreement amongst the participants that after Malta's accession to the EU there was a role change in their profession; that there was an increase in demands; that the current structure is not adequate to meet the new demands; that the EHOs have changed the way and method of carrying out an inspection; that there were several changes in the regulations and legislation; that there is no harmonization between the EHOs in the Member States and that specialization is the solution to meet the new demands on condition that this should be optional.