Investigating and Evaluating the Requirement for Development of Universities and Research-Educational Centers of Environmental Health in Iran

Background: As the subject of environmental health knowledge trains specialized and dedicated human resources and offers the quality and quantity of human resources needed for environmental health, future research and foresight are particularly crucial. This study examines research and educational facilities in the field of environmental health in terms of the presence of expert human resources and the development of facilities. This study addressed educational and research centers in the field of environmental health in terms of its development and the presence of expert human resources. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional research was conducted in 2018-2019. First, a description of the ten areas of higher education has been presented and information related to indicators such as the presence of health faculty, the number of professors and research centers has been presented in the form of tables and figures. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22 software. Results: The findings indicated that there are regional differences in the proportion of faculty members to the total population. This ratio was lower in regions 5 and 10, but was significantly higher in region 8 compared to the national average (4.5 persons per million people). Also, the eastern provinces had a high number of environmental health student training centers. There were differences in the number of environmental health research facilities across different regions, and some provinces had none at all. The highest number of people working with environmental health degrees was found in region 5, while the lowest number was found in region 7. Conclusion: The findings showed that the development of education should be based on related factors, including population, and the environmental health facilities and priorities of each of the regions should be the basis of educational-research center development, student admission, and attracting faculty members and expert staff in order to be more productive in the field of environmental health engineering.