Abigail Tighe, Western Carolina University
This content was created by an EHS intern to describe intern experiences. It has not been revised or edited to conform to agency standards. The findings and conclusions are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
SUPEH Intern, Summer 2016
The SUPEH internship offered at NCEH was one that challenged me and allowed to me to put my coursework knowledge to use. I was provided with a number of opportunities to contribute meaningful work to the environmental health field and gain a better understanding of what it means to have a career in public health. During my time at the SUPEH internship I did a wide range of tasks, including a research project. My project, “Assisting with the Development of a Vector Control Toolkit for Environmental Health Professionals”, consisted of me putting together resources and documents to be used for the toolkit. At the beginning of the project I went through vector control documents and resources from many federal agency’s websites. I categorized these resources and organized them based on the type of vector. Additionally I put together comparison documents for different types of vector traps. This was especially important for mosquito traps because there are a wide variety of traps and there was not a resource that explained what traps are best for specific mosquitoes in one concise document. Outside of my project I also assisted with a systematic review of environmental health at the state level. To do this I went through a number of state’s department of health websites and identified where environmental health topics were being dealt with and enforced.
In addition to all of this, I was fortunate enough to be able to work under a supervisor that included me in a lot of other projects that were going on within the center. I was able to learn about an EPA section 18 and all the work that goes along with putting one together. The section 18 that I was able to learn about was for the use of a new mosquito trap in areas of the continental United States that were experiencing local Zika transmission. Due to my supervisors role in the section 18 he was included in the centers emergency response planning for Zika and I was able to sit on these weekly response meetings for the outbreak. I learned a lot in these meetings, but what stood out to me the most was how important health communication is. I found that good communication is not only needed when informing the public, but is also very important when communicating within an organization. Overall I learned a great deal of information this summer. I learned about things from vectors and health communication, to water systems and public health ethics. It was an internship full of exciting seminars and discussions and my work I did this summer helped me to define my interests and goals in environment health.