Submitted by Thurston County Public Health
Have you ever spent time looking up information about household chemicals? Oil recycling? Rodent prevention? What about food-borne illnesses? Now it’s easier with Thurston County Environmental Health’s new blog, Environmental Health Matters.
The blog is full of helpful tips for various environmental health topics such as reducing exposure to toxics, food safety, drinking water, household hazardous products, and resources available through Thurston County Environmental Health. An important feature is the ability to provide real-time Thurston County-specific notifications of lake or beach advisories for toxic algae blooms, illness-causing agents in shellfish and other environmental health advisories. The environmental health staff are responsible for developing interesting content for each post.
The blog coordinator is Education and Outreach Specialist, Elisa Kaufmann. She started the blog as a way to make information about current environmental health topics in Thurston County easy to access. “We choose topics that are relevant to the time of year and what is going on in our county. We also write about what each of us can do to promote healthy environments for ourselves and our families,” Kaufmann said. “The posts are generally short, with a focused message often with links to more in depth information, so it’s a quick and easy way to get information.”
A “Healthy Holidays” series of blog posts is planned for late November and December. These posts will provide tips for making choices throughout the holiday season that are healthier for us and our environment.
You can sign up to follow the blog and get a notification email each time there is a new post, which is generally once a week. Visit the blog and sign up to follow it at www.environmentalhealthblog.blogspot.com.
