Environmental Health Services

The Virginia Beach Department of Public Health has an Office of Environmental Health Services.  Its mission is to provide essential environmental health services to the residents and guests of Virginia Beach. These services are designed to ensure that people residing in or visiting Virginia Beach can work, raise families, recreate and grow without the threat of food borne, water borne, or vector borne disease and to protect and preserve environmental resources such as earth, water, air, fauna and flora. The major focus areas of this effort are as follows:

- A Food Protection Program that includes intensive food service manager training, food establishment plan review, regulatory inspections, site specific specialized employee training and required enforcement actions.

- An On-site Wastewater Disposal Program that includes subdivision plan review, site feasibility studies, system design, regulatory inspections, sanitary surveys, and required enforcement actions.

- A Private Well Program that includes subdivision plan review, site feasibility studies, system design, regulatory inspections, sanitary surveys, and required enforcement actions.

- A Rabies Prevention Program that includes intensive public education efforts with a major emphasis on school age children, investigation of all potential human and pet exposures, conducting rabies vaccination clinics for pet dogs and cats, insuring that all human exposures receive the entire required post-exposure prophylaxis, and required enforcement actions.

- A General Environmental Program that includes liaison with federal, state and local government agencies, regulation of public swimming pools, tourist establishments, and the investigation of environmental complaints. Included with this element are many training courses offered to the public in subjects pertaining to environmental health.