The USF College of Public Health (COPH) has teamed with Purdue University and the University of Toledo to develop online training modules and research experiences for graduate students across the country studying industrial hygiene. 

The modules are being developed with the help of a nearly $250,000, 5-year National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grant titled Distance Education and Training on Emerging Contaminants and Technology (DETECT). Emerging contaminants to be covered include, but are not limited to, nanoparticles, bioaerosols and ototoxic compounds. Learning will be both lecture-based and hands-on.

The NIEHS, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supports cutting-edge, innovative health science research. According to its website, “Prospective graduate students and graduate students from the DETECT consortium institutions and beyond will be encouraged to participate. These intensive sessions will include research training, laboratory tours, and the opportunity for participants to complete, analyze and present a short research project.

They will develop five online laboratories and at least one virtual reality laboratory. The online laboratories will be accessible using an internet browser and will be incorporated into the online educational modules. The virtual reality laboratory will be completed in-person by graduate students at the DETECT consortium institutions.”

Dr. Marie Bourgeois, a COPH research assistant professor and alumna of the college, is principal investigator of the USF portion of the NIEHS grant. Dr. Tom Bernard, a COPH professor, is co-investigator.

“We’re developing lectures with assessments built into them, disaster response training, online labs and an in-person, one-week summer research session,” Bourgeois said. “This training is designed to provide education on emerging contaminants and technologies so future industrial hygienists can help keep both themselves and the people they are responsible for safe.”

Bourgeois said some of the things she and her colleagues will seek to include in the modules range from basic training, such as how to properly take off personal protection equipment to reduce the risk of contamination, to technical advances, such as detecting harmful algae blooms.

“We’ll be giving students training and then we’ll present them with an industrial or environmental problem that they’ll have to handle,” Bourgeois said. “It could be a spill, a bloom or some sort of hazard that’s popped up and they’re going to have to work out a toxicity profile, how to characterize the risk and then how to deal with it.”

Bourgeois noted that development of the modules is still in the planning stages, with the group working not just on content, but also on how to present the information in a format that’s cohesive and uniform. 

“If this is successful, and we continually refine the modules and improve upon them, I’d really like to see this expand to a wider audience beyond just graduate students studying industrial hygiene,” Bourgeois said. “It could become open to others looking at a public health degree with a science slant.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health