The Environmental Health Capacity (EHC) Program invites child care professionals to participate in a short nano learning course on air quality. The EHC program is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded program under the Division of Environmental Health Epidemiology (DEHE) with the Pennsylvania Department of Health. EHC seeks to provide outreach and education on topics related to children’s environmental health.
Children’s environments, such as where they live, learn and play, may impact their health. Exposure to environmental hazards like mold, poor air quality or contaminated drinking water could lead to harmful health outcomes. Notably, infants and children have a higher risk of experiencing harm from exposure to environmental hazards. One environmental indicator that is of great importance to children’s development is air quality. Air is an essential part of our lives. Children, whose lungs are still developing, have a higher risk of developing complications such as asthma due to poor air quality. Teaching these kids – our future leaders – about air quality is one of the first steps in creating environmental and public health change. The nano learning course should take a few minutes minutes to complete and provides an overview of what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Air Quality Index (AQI) is, why it is important, and how it can be included in your classroom plans and activities. The content included in the nano training was retrieved from the AirNow.gov website and additional electronic resources are provided for you to use as needed.
After completing the training, please provide feedback by answering a few short questions to inform our future outreach efforts to childcare providers. You may access the brief survey here. It is a total of four questions of which only two are compulsory and they are yes or no responses. If you have comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact the EHC Program at dehe@pa.gov.
See the resources to support the training.