According to the most recent data from the State's Employment Development Department (www.edd.ca.gov), there are currently 18,494,000 working age adults (16-64 years of age) in California. About 17% of the California labor force is in the six counties (Alameda. Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara) that border the San Francisco Bay area. UCB is located in Alameda County. Recent data indicate that the regional and overall California labor force continues to grow, although the manufacturing sector is shrinking. In turn, depending on the labor force sector, the overall need for IH services will continue to grow but likely decrease in manufacturing. The UCB SPH has offered an occupational health training program since the late 1950's. In 1978, the California legislature funded the University of California to establish a permanent occupational safety and health program. The Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) has activities on the Berkeley, San Francisco and Davis campuses, and is the administrative center for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ERC. At Berkeley, the program traditionally consisted of three academic specialty areas (Industrial Hygiene, Toxicology, and Occupational Epidemiology). These specialty tracks are part of the Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Division, one of five academic Divisions in the Public Health (SPH). Academic degrees (MS and PhD, Environmental Health Sciences) and professional degrees (Master of Public Health (MPH) and DrPH) are offered. The academic degree programs (MS, PhD) are designed for students interested in original research and in teaching. MPH industrial hygiene students are trained to recognize the need for interventions, to design and execute studies for the acquisition of data necessary to evaluate the level of hazard, and to apply existing control technologies. In the DrPH program, students conduct an original analysis of a pertinent applied problem.
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