UNIFORM ENVIRONMENTAL-HEALTH CODE - A MODERN MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR PROGRESS

Local environmental health (EH) agencies are often responsible for the enforcement of EH codes in multiple jurisdictions - such as all citie s within a country. Where numerous EH city codes are involved, inconsi stencies among the many codes may create considerable nonproductive ad ministrative tasks for the EH delivery agency. This paper describes no w a Uniform Environmental Health Code (UEHC), developed by a Californi a county EH agency and adopted by its 24 cities, helped the agency ove rcome such inefficiencies and deliver better EH service at lower cost to the cities. The code also helped to improve internal/external dialo gue as to the appropriateness of different compliance strategies to co rrect violations (education and motivation versus enforcement and lega l action). Spin-off benefits included increased synergism and morale a mong EH staff, and EH agency stature with the cities for good value EH services delivered. These advantages have been magnified during recen t recessionary times.