Just as the name implies, Environmental Health Specialists are responsible for monitoring health and safety conditions in commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational settings. You are allowed to collect samples of water, air, soil, and possible pollutants for inspection. Your core responsibility is to determine the existence of possible health hazards and take corrective measures concerning them. Understanding this, you must check all factories, plants, or industrial waste by inspecting schools, restaurants, daycare centers, and nursing homes. Apart from monitoring your environment, you are also expected to monitor hospitals, especially on how they handle biological waste products and ensure swimming pools are safe for recreational purposes.
As a government employee, you are allowed to issue a certificate stating that a particular place meets the acceptable health and safety standards and issue permits. Resolving problems and finding an alternative for those problems is your responsibility. Basic skill requirements for an environmental health specialist include excellent analytical skills, knowledge of environmental policies and regulations, excellent communication skills, and a love for a clean environment. The average salary of an environmental health specialist annually is $52,000. However, you need a bachelor's degree in Public Health or other related fields.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an Environmental Health Specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $24.13 an hour? That's $50,187 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 7,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many Environmental Health Specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed Ability to use technology, Detail oriented and Physical stamina.
If you're interested in becoming an Environmental Health Specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 73.4% of Environmental Health Specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 12.7% of Environmental Health Specialists have master's degrees. Even though most Environmental Health Specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an Environmental Health Specialist. When we researched the most common majors for an Environmental Health Specialist, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Environmental Health Specialist resumes include Associate Degree degrees or High School Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an Environmental Health Specialist. In fact, many Environmental Health Specialist jobs require experience in a role such as Internship. Meanwhile, many Environmental Health Specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as Environmental Health Safety Manager or Research Assistant.