Are you looking for a topic for your project? An abbreviated list of suggested topics for review, guidance, and summary documents not yet addressed by the NCCEH follows below. Please let us know if you select one of the topics for your project.

Suggestions from our third scan of environmental health priorities:

Rated list of topics suggested by more than one person

Topics suggested by one person

Built Environment
- How to promote healthy living
- The contribution of built environment to obesity
- Available health indices to apply to new development proposals
- Identify areas where evidence is strongest and actionable (e.g., traffic gradients and air pollution)

Chemical Agents
- Effectiveness of lead interventions in residences

Children’s Environmental Health
- Review of environmental factors impacting the womb
- Chemicals and sudden infant death syndrome - beyond tobacco smoke
- Environmental effects on child neurodevelopment

Climate Change
- Effectiveness of heat alert response systems
- Emergency response to climate change (floods, etc.)

Communicable & Infectious Diseases
- When to test for legionella, what triggers outbreaks, procedures for testing and investigation (including compiling case results)

Drinking Water
- How to change operator behaviour without enforcement power (case studies)
- Health effects of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics in water supply
- How to apply Canadian drinking water guidelines to seasonal operations and transient users
- How to assess the risk of contamination of a well
- How to manage the risk associated with use of irrigation canals as drinking water source (agricultural run-off, e.g., chemicals, pesticides)
- Mapping source water risks across Canada based on testing
- How to test drinking water in remote communities. How it is done across Canada.

- Blue-green algae: What is the public health significance and response?

Evaluation
- Learning from our mistakes: case studies
- How to determine public health inspection capacity needed in an area

Food Safety
- Best practices for food processing in small operations (e.g., beef jerky, low acid foods, canning, bottled beef stew) and assessment
- Environmental exposures associated with "country food", e.g., lead shot
- The link between high fat diet, contaminants, and diabetes

Health Impact Assessment
- How to assess impact of urbanization of agricultural and/or industrial land

Indoor Air
- Cost-effective ways to conduct indoor air assessments
- Ranking of risks associated with various exposures

Inspections
- What is the optimal frequency for inspection, not including food (e.g., discussion paper about challenges)

Oil & Gas
- Health impacts of oil sands for First Nations communities, including traditional foods and use
- How to assess and manage risks associated with hydraulic fracturing

“One Health”
- Effectiveness of "One Health" ecosystem interventions, e.g., cyanobacteria

Personal Service Establishments
- Infection control from medium risk personal services such as electrolysis, and some spa treatments

Recreational Water
- Evaluation of recreational water monitoring programs (frequency)
- Cases of illness associated with swimming pools
- Design and operational guides for swimming pools (comparison)

Risk Assessment & Communication
- Human health risk assessment: Case studies, routine and emergency (e.g., sodium hydroxide train derailment)
- How to engage local communities and stakeholders in risk assessment and communication

Waste
- Guidelines for inspecting sewage disposal and septic (comparison)
- Health impacts of landfills (small, individual, specific industry), including cumulative effects
- Sewage disposal and septic programs (comparison)
- Technical review of options for small sewage systems (comparison)
- How to assess treatment systems for grey water

Miscellaneous
- Analytical tools/methods to support/promote policy decisions (e.g., EPA tool to evaluate air quality impacts from traffic scenarios and urban planning)

Updated July 2013