Implementation of chemical incident training in human health programmes

Resumen

The release of chemicals or chemical incidents can have dramatic consequences on human health and the environment. Moreover, environments contaminated by chemicals can increase the morbidityand mortality of the population and such environments should be appropriately decontaminated to protect the public. Health care professionals can provide invaluable help to respond to these events.Responders should receive appropriate and specialised training, but to our knowledge this training is limited in human health degrees in the European Union. An innovative teaching group from DeMontfort University (DMU, UK) and the University of Alcalá (UAH, Spain) is developing training to provide basic skills to future professionals to respond to these incidents. Preliminary training was tested with pharmacists at UAH with high levels of student satisfaction in 2013/14 (>88%). We have comprehensively modified this training and created two research-led workshops with different degrees of difficulty for the 2016/17 course at DMU: one basic and lasting 3 hours for undergraduate students enrolled in the BMedSci Medical Science (Hons) degree; the other more specialised and lasting 2 hours for master students attending the MSc. Advanced Biomedical Science programme. The basic training consisted of developing a public health intervention to reduce the emissions of lead (Pb) and minimise its presence in urban environments. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended preventing exposure of children to this metal. Second year BMedSci students (n=41) developed an intervention programme to prevent exposure of children to Pb following the steps of evidence-based public health. Students were provided with information about the toxicology of Pb and articles to inform their decisions. Additionally, previous successful interventions reported in the literature such as the ban of use of lead compounds in gasoline were shown to students. In relation with the second specialised training, masters degree students (n=7) used the novel tools (Chemical Recovery Navigation Tool) developed by Public Health England (UK) to tailor a remedial response to two environments (food and water) affected by pharmaceutical drugs. Up to 92% of medical science students highlighted that they have learnt how to identify public health interventions to protect the public and were satisfied with the training provided (93%); all of these students have indicated that they learnt how to protect children from chemical contaminants. 83% of the master’s students reported that they acquired some knowledge to respond to chemical incidents, and 84% how to tailor an appropriate recovery programme. Finally, 85% and 83% of students have recommended the incorporation of more, similar, training in each programme respectively (BMedSci and MSc). Limitations highlighted by students are related with the amount of information that they need to process to tailor an intervention in a short time. These research-led workshops, methods and tools used, have been shown to facilitate the acquisition of skills to respond to future chemical incidents to a minor scale. More efforts should be taken to incorporate appropriate training to face chemical incidents in human health science programmes, including the decontamination of the environment, due to the increasing prevalence of these incidents.