ENV H 473: EH Policy & Practice

Case Study C

Automotive Repair Shops

Scenario:
You are a new environmental public health specialist in a fairly highly populated county. One day you
take your car to a neighborhood garage to get the oil changed. As a workman in appropriately stained
overalls is asking you questions about your faithful old car, you glance around the inside of the garage.
The part of your brain you use for work kicks in and you notice, somewhat to your chagrin, that the work
space has lots of environmental health hazards. You work with occupational safety, but youve never
really dealt with automotive repair shops and garages. Regardless, you can see unmarked chemical
containers and no sign of safety or first aid equipment. You realize that there must be dozens of similar
garages in the county. You decide to talk to your colleagues back at work about this. Youre new at the
health departments environmental health division, and you realize you want to know more about this.
After you do a little digging around for more information, you realize that the health department could
have a role in making sure automotive shops and garages are safe places for the workers and patrons.
You learn that health departments in other places like Boston have dealt with safety in automotive
shops. You start to have conversations with two of your co-workers about how to approach this issue
and all the different aspects of what could be done like collecting data, getting community input,
developing regulations, etc.. At this point you decide that you need to get the approval of your
supervisor and administrator to in order to begin formal work on the project. When approached, they
both are enthusiastic about what could turn into a new community outreach program. They appoint you
and your two co-workers as an ad hoc task force to prepare a formal action plan for their approval
You realize that it is getting complicated and you think that it would be easier if there were a structure or
checklist for you to follow to guide what needs to be done or considered if you are going to turn this into
a real program.
Things to consider:

1. What types of environmental health issues could be a problem in a car garage?

2. What are the different aspects of what should be done to address this public health issue thoroughly
(Collecting data, getting community input, and developing regulations were mentioned. What else?)?
3. What have any health departments in other places done regarding automotive or body shop safety?
4. What are the 10 Essential Services of Environmental Health? How might you fulfill each of the 10
Essential Services of Environmental Health in a program that helps automotive repair shops be safer?

Some Reference Materials:

Shoemaker P.A., Skogstrom T., Shea J., Bethune L., The Boston Safe Shops Project Preliminary
Findings of a Case Study in Applying the 10 Essential Services of Public Health to Building
Environmental Health Capacity. Journal of Environmental Health, July/Aug 2007 or view
http://www.bphc.org/bphc/oeh_safeshop.asp

Spring Quarter 2016

ENV H 473: EH Policy & Practice

Case Study C

Assignment:
For this case, assume that your group is part of the Environmental Health staff of a local county
Health Department. Your job is to prepare a plan of action for the Health Director for approval.
What should be your initial steps? The group should discuss briefly and decide upon a formal
action plan that could be presented to the rest of this class. In framing your report, you will need
to consider each of the following issues, questions or concerns.
1. Research the common hazards found in automotive repair and body shops.
2. Who would you consider to be major stakeholders and how would you propose to work with
them to ensure that they are meaningfully involved in addressing the problem?
3. How would you consider using the 10 Essential Services of Environmental Health as a guide
in assessing the problem, in developing policy or plans, and in assuring that the plans or
policies are effectively carried out?
4. What communication strategies or methods would you suggest to ensure that all
stakeholders and the general public are aware of the problem?
5. What are the risks of your strategy and how do suggest minimizing them?
6. How would you evaluate the effectiveness of the outcomes from your plan?
7. What if your plan fails or backfires? What are your back-up options?

Spring Quarter 2016