Environmental health programs prepare people to work as sanitarians and other environmental health specialists. Students learn inspection methods. They study environmental and biomedical sciences. They also learn to help enforce laws that protect public health.

John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, once said, "Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe." The basis of environmental health rests on this idea. Our health is tied to the "health" of water sources, the air, the physical environment at our jobs, and the food that we eat.

As an environmental health specialist, you research and promote the health and safety of the environment around us for the sake of public health. In order to do this, you study principles of natural sciences such as biology and chemistry and apply them to the environment. You also study basic health sciences in order to understand ways that our bodies both get sick and get well.

Studying both environmental and health sciences serves as background for performing health and safety inspections. You learn to test water sources, the air, food that we eat, and the physical environments in which we work. You also study and analyze public policies related to the environment. You learn to develop and advocate new ones, when necessary.

This program of study prepares you for many careers. You could work as a health department official or a safety supervisor for a company. You could be an environmental protection agent, working for either a government or nongovernment organization. You could conduct research in a lab, as a technician or manager. These are just some of the applications of environmental health you could pursue.

About 100 schools in the U.S. offer programs in environmental health. You can earn a bachelor's, a master's, or a doctoral degree. In general, a bachelor's degree takes about four years of full-time study after high school. A master's degree usually takes five to six years and a doctoral degree typically ten years.