Office of Environmental Health Services

The Office of Environmental Health Services (OEHS) helps protect Virginia’s food and environment by developing policy, analyzing local, state and federal legislation, evaluating public health programs, providing liaison assistance and providing scientific and technical expertise. OEHS oversees food and shellfish safety, tourism safety, lead poisoning investigation, safe drinking water from private wells and safe onsite wastewater treatment and disposal. Environmental health programs use regulations to establish requirements that minimize the risks associated with diseases caused by environmental contamination.

One of VDH’s goals is to collect, maintain and disseminate accurate, timely and understandable public health information. In OEHS, timely and informative environmental health statistics provide a basis for analysis of public health issues. OEHS provides citizens with information on food safety and shellfish sanitation, contributing to the health of all Virginians.

Restaurant Inspection Information Available Online VDH provides easy access to all restaurant inspection information online. Consumers over the last year averaged more than 55,000 visits to the Web site per month and the site had over 1.7 million hits monthly. They were able to view the results of more than 60,000 unannounced restaurant inspections conducted by local health departments throughout Virginia each year to ensure consumer health and safety.

This Web site is a significant factor in obtaining compliance with food safety standards. Mitigating food safety hazards through continued surveillance of restaurants is a key objective in VDH’s strategic plan and OEHS will continue its emphasis on this Web site so that it remains of value to consumers.

Division of Shellfish Sanitation Implements National Shellfish Sanitation Program Among the activities of the Division of Shellfish Sanitation (DSS) is the classification of shellfish growing areas throughout Tidewater Virginia, and the inspection and certification of shellfish and crab meat facilities. DSS also provides customer service to concerned citizens about shellfish growing areas and to production facility owners about processing techniques. Over the past year, DSS has fully incorporated the use of Geographic Information Systems to help synthesize information and provide enhanced capability for spatial analysis. This aids in determining the sources of pollution impacting shellfish growing areas. Reports are generated with an accompanying map displaying the condemned or closed area including the latitude/longitude map coordinates of the closure line. These reports are forwarded to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission for shellfish harvesting enforcement purposes and are also posted to the DSS Web page found at: http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/OEHS/Shellfish.

Development of VDH’s strategic plan has provided OEHS with the opportunity to incorporate actions that improve the collection and dissemination of information in other environmental health programs. Using the above highlighted experiences as a guide, OEHS seeks to increase the quantity and quality of information provided to the public.