Chief Environmental Health Officer
CAPT Timothy Jiggens

Welcome to the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) category, the foundation of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.  The USPHS Commissioned Corps Doctrine articulates a vision of “. . . the Nation’s preeminent public health asset called upon to solve public health challenges and address daily and emergent public health needs, throughout the United States and globally.”  I share this vision of the USPHS Commissioned Corps and see that we manifest this more day by day.  Advancing this ideal, I envision for the EHO category:

 An integrated team of active duty and reserve Environmental Health Officers, preventing illness and injury across the nation and around the globe, rising to the challenge when our Commissioned Corps and Country need us most.

The goal of public health is the prevention of illness and injury, therefore a larger EHO category is required to meet the objectives of the Commissioned Corps Modernization Initiative.  We EHOs are the ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure.  We are indeed the foundation of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. 

While many of us are concentrated in the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Indian Health Service, we are currently scattered across sixteen agencies and departments.  EHOs have long served in agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency, but our presence is just starting to grow in the Department of the Interior, Immigration & Customs Enforcement -  Health Service Corps, and the Bureau of Prisons.

EHOs work in health promotion and disease prevention, injury prevention, and occupational safety. We also work in highly specialized areas such as counterterrorism, emergency management, health physics, hazardous waste operations and emergency response, environmental compliance and sustainability, food safety, infection control, and epidemiological research. We often deploy as safety officers, fulfilling the noble mission of protecting the health and safety of those who protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our Nation.  When our Country  most urgently needs the Commissioned Corps, the Commissioned Corps most dearly needs our EHOs.

As an EHO in the USPHS Commissioned Corps you’ll never run short of meaningful experiences and opportunities to make the world a better place.