Common Ground & Common Sense: Community-based Environmental Health Planning – An Action Handbook

The Handbook has been put together by experienced practitioners drawn from each of those four groups. The team put the Handbook together on the basis that:
• the primary impact and management of any environmental health issue is at the community scale;
• community-based environmental health requires collaboration between health professions, community groups, and environmental managers; and
• collaboration does not just happen - it is built on the careful development of good-will, fair and equitable processes, and open communication structures.
Priorities for the design and contents of the Handbook were drawn from:
• Principles of the National Environmental Health Strategy www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/publicat/document/envstrat.pdf;
• Strategies of National Environmental Health Strategy Implementation Plan www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/publicat/document/envstrat_imp.pdf;
• enHealth Council's study of community perceptions of environmental health risk www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/publicat/document/metadata/envrisk.htm;
• Guidelines for community-based environmental health action established through nation-wide consultation, available as a companion to this handbook: Grass Roots and Common Ground www.uws.edu/research/rimc/cehaps; and
• A survey of the practical needs of environmental health practitioners (Cruickshank 2001), see Appendix page 145.
The avenues for action supported by the Handbook can be summed up as:
• Linking the community commitment of voluntary programs to the legislative power of government;
• Bridging the divide between health and environment currently found in professional and government services and community expectations; and
• Bringing together the wide range of activities and resources for environmental health from community, expert and government practice.