A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study
Environmental health professionals play a significant role in preventing and addressing public health problems. Improving this area of practice continues to be a key strategy of the Australian Government; however, achieving this outcome presents several challenges. These challenges relate to the cha...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Critical Public Health |
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| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09581596.2024.2361153 |
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| author | Louise Dunn Llewellyn Mann Karen Farquharson |
| author_facet | Louise Dunn Llewellyn Mann Karen Farquharson |
| author_sort | Louise Dunn |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Environmental health professionals play a significant role in preventing and addressing public health problems. Improving this area of practice continues to be a key strategy of the Australian Government; however, achieving this outcome presents several challenges. These challenges relate to the changing context of the practice and the complexities inherent in the practice itself. To address this problem, we investigated the qualitatively different ways environmental health professionals experienced their practice in Australia to establish a new conceptualization of practice. Phenomenographic qualitative methods underpinned this study, involving open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 19 environmental health professionals from diverse backgrounds and practice settings. The study revealed four qualitatively different ways of experiencing the professional practice of environmental health: ‘protecting’, ‘helping’, ‘collaborating’, and ‘leading and innovating’. These different ways were logically linked by five themes of expanding awareness to form a Holistic Experiential Description of Practice (HEDP), representing a new and novel conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health. We propose that these findings provide a more useful way to conceptualize this area of practice than the current descriptions allow. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e01262c3ccd342b4ba0b7a103f2a27a1 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 0958-1596 1469-3682 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Critical Public Health |
| spelling | doaj-art-e01262c3ccd342b4ba0b7a103f2a27a12025-08-20T01:58:28ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCritical Public Health0958-15961469-36822024-12-0134111710.1080/09581596.2024.2361153A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative studyLouise Dunn0Llewellyn Mann1Karen Farquharson2School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, AustraliaLearning Transformations Unit, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, AustraliaSchool of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, AustraliaEnvironmental health professionals play a significant role in preventing and addressing public health problems. Improving this area of practice continues to be a key strategy of the Australian Government; however, achieving this outcome presents several challenges. These challenges relate to the changing context of the practice and the complexities inherent in the practice itself. To address this problem, we investigated the qualitatively different ways environmental health professionals experienced their practice in Australia to establish a new conceptualization of practice. Phenomenographic qualitative methods underpinned this study, involving open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 19 environmental health professionals from diverse backgrounds and practice settings. The study revealed four qualitatively different ways of experiencing the professional practice of environmental health: ‘protecting’, ‘helping’, ‘collaborating’, and ‘leading and innovating’. These different ways were logically linked by five themes of expanding awareness to form a Holistic Experiential Description of Practice (HEDP), representing a new and novel conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health. We propose that these findings provide a more useful way to conceptualize this area of practice than the current descriptions allow.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09581596.2024.2361153Environmental healthprofessionspracticephenomenographyqualitative |
| spellingShingle | Louise Dunn Llewellyn Mann Karen Farquharson A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study Critical Public Health Environmental health professions practice phenomenography qualitative |
| title | A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study |
| title_full | A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study |
| title_fullStr | A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study |
| title_full_unstemmed | A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study |
| title_short | A new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health: an Australian qualitative study |
| title_sort | new conceptualization of the professional practice of environmental health an australian qualitative study |
| topic | Environmental health professions practice phenomenography qualitative |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09581596.2024.2361153 |
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