Internship

NEHA has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Water, Food, and Environmental Health Services Branch for the past five years to support state, tribal, and local public health department internships for environmental health (EH) students through the National Environmental Public Health Internship Program (NEPHIP). The aim of NEPHIP is to encourage environmental health students to consider careers at local, state, or tribal environmental public health departments following graduation. Through this internship program, students will be exposed to exciting career opportunities, benefits, and challenges of working with environmental public health agencies throughout the U.S. The program connects highly qualified EH students and high performing state, tribal, local, or territorial (STLT) public health departments with the purpose of:

1. Exposing EH students to the important mission and work of STLT public health departments;

2. Presenting students with career opportunities and encouragement to consider working at a public health department;

3. Providing STLT public health departments with, at no cost, a qualified intern who is eager to gain field experience and contribute to the department’s work;

4. Increasing awareness of EHAC accredited programs and the value of working with and hiring their students and graduates.

NEHA administers the National Environmental Public Health Internship Program (NEPHIP) and is supported by cooperative agreement CDC-RFA-OT18-1802.

2021 NEPHIP 

It is unclear how the NEPHIP program will be administered in 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic. Our options are to conduct the internships virtually, in-person, or to follow a hybrid model. Please note that we are actively monitoring the situation and are committed to supporting the EH workforce and emerging professionals to effectively and safely do their jobs. 

Due to COVID-19, the traditional NEPHIP program was modified to offer virtual internships in 2020 instead of in-person experiences. A community of practice was created called the National Environmental Public Health Internship Program (NEPHIP) Network to support remote internship activities. NEHA will continue to engage students through the online community. The network is administered and supported by NEHA in partnership with the CDC. 

The 2021 NEPHIP application period is now open and will close on January 22, 2021. 

Application Information

This application is open to environmental health students and public health agencies (STLT). Students who apply must be enrolled in environmental health academic programs accredited through the National Environmental Health Science and Protection Accreditation Council (EHAC). Selected students will receive a base stipend of $6,000 ($600 per week) for undergraduate and $8000 ($800 per week) for graduate students to complete a 10-week internship. 

NEHA's role in NEPHIP is to:

• Solicits applications from eligible environmental health departments and selects locations based on established application criteria. 
• Solicits applications from eligible environmental health students and selects interns based on established application criteria. 
• NEHA staff will match the selected interns with the environmental health departments based on geolocation preferences, interests, and professional goals that align with opportunities at the health department. (Note. NEHA cannot guarantee placement base on previous mentioned criteria.) 

Please contact programs@neha.org, rtariq@neha.org, or akeenan@neha.org with any questions or concerns.

2021 PROGRAM GUIDELINES

HEALTH DEPARTMENT APPLICATION 

STUDENT INTERNSHIP APPLICATION

PAST INTERN SUCCESS STORIes