The goal of health protection monitoring is to prevent, decrease and remove factors in the living environment that may be detrimental to people’s health.
Health protection duties
The duties of the health protection services include monitoring the healthiness of homes and other living areas (e.g. indoor air quality, radon, noise and pests), monitoring establishments subject to notification (e.g. public meeting and accommodation premises, sporting facilities, schools, day care centres, retirement homes, swimming halls, beaches, beauty parlours, gyms and tanning salons), monitoring household, swimming and pool water and monitoring the health conditions of public areas, buildings and large public events. Preparing for disruptions in order to prevent, identify and remove health hazards is one of the central duties of the health protection services.
The health protection services regularly monitor operators obligated to obtain a permit or submit a notification in their field. Regular monitoring requires a fee and it is described in the monitoring plan. If necessary, the environmental health services can make inspections and take samples also based on suspected health hazards.