Public health inspectors ensure compliance with health laws by inspecting food, restaurants, homes, swimming pools, nursing homes, and day care centers. A college degree and internship experience are usually required. Tact, sensitivity, firmness, and determination are necessary traits. The job can lead to other positions such as public health supervisors, safety advocates, or writers.
Health inspectors investigate places and things to ensure they comply with public health laws. The job may involve inspecting food, restaurants, homes, swimming pools, nursing homes and day care centers. To become a public health inspector, you’ll usually need a college degree and internship experience.
In some places, if local law permits, people become health inspectors as a result of obtaining a high school diploma, three years of supervised inspection experience, and passing the required certification exam. Granted, this isn’t a typical scenario. You will likely need to earn a college degree if you want to become a public health inspector.
Getting a college degree in food science, water chemistry, or public and environmental health can be helpful if you want to become a public health inspector. These undergraduate courses are very science intensive and very competitive. While in college, you’ll need to get good grades because a high grade point average (GPA) is what will convince prospective employers that you have the observation, analytical, and learning skills to succeed as a public health inspector.
During college, it can also be helpful to do an internship if you want to become a public health inspector. The internship could be a public health-related internship that is found at a local public health department, a local business, or with the government. Chances are, your college’s career services department can help you find an internship. Or you can conduct an online search for a public health internship. Getting internship experience can be important because the internship experience will complement classroom learning and provide supervised, real-world experience that will prepare you for employment after college.
In addition to having the necessary academic training, it helps to have tact and sensitivity, as well as being very firm and determined if you want to become a public health inspector. It’s hard to have that particular combination of personality traits; however, if you have these traits, he can help you with the job. For example, public health inspectors need to be tactful and sensitive enough to obtain all necessary information about a potential public health risk, as well as being very firm and determined in enforcing the law. They must be willing to recommend that a building or business close if the site fails to meet health standards.
Pursuing a career as a public health inspector can lead to all sorts of other positions. For example, public health inspectors might go back to school to earn a Doctor of Philosophy degree in industrial hygiene, food science, chemistry, or environmental health so that they can pursue careers as public health supervisors. Or they could pursue university teaching. They can become safety advocates who bring attention to issues that affect public safety. Or, public health inspectors could pursue careers as columnists or book authors who write books to educate the public about safety issues.
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