Glossary
Environmental Health Specialist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential environmental health specialist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key environmental health specialist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in environmental health specialist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Active managerial control
- A business’s system to control food safety risks.
- Coliform bacteria
- Indicator bacteria used to test water safety.
- Corrective action
- Steps required to fix a violation.
- Critical violation
- A violation likely to cause illness.
- Cross-contamination
- Transfer of harmful organisms from one food or surface to another.
- Food code
- Rules for food safety in retail food establishments.
- Free chlorine
- The active disinfectant in pool water.
- HACCP
- Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, a food safety system.
- Imminent health hazard
- A condition requiring immediate closure.
- Outbreak
- Two or more illnesses linked to a common source.
- Percolation test
- A test of how fast soil absorbs water.
- Plan review
- Reviewing construction plans for food or pool facilities.
- Septic system
- An onsite system that treats household wastewater.
- Temperature danger zone
- The range where bacteria grow quickly, about 41 to 135 °F.
- Vector
- An organism, such as a mosquito or rodent, that spreads disease.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Environmental Health Specialist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Environmental Health Specialist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.