Environmental & Public Health

Just beyond the front door of the Montessori School at Five Canyons, a square glass-walled foyer is brimming with verdant houseplants in clay pots. Garden sculptures and glazed ceramic art are interspersed throughout. Above it all floats the looped sound of softly chirping birds. This lush tableau provides a fitting transition between the world outside and the carefully controlled atmosphere within, where child care director Meher Van Groenou has made environmental health one of her top priorities.

Low-income neighborhoods are more often exposed to poor environmental quality when compared to wealthier communities, and scientists are saying this gap will increase as climate change is more widely felt.

Los Angeles, California, is one of the biggest transportation in the world, but that has major health implications for residents. Exposure to diesel fumes has an impact on everyone, and Switzer Fellow Scott Fruin documents those effects, especially on children.

In what researchers are calling a first, a new analysis suggests that the greater a woman's exposure to a type of common chemical compound called PFCs, the greater her risk for developing osteoarthritis. Researchers did not find a similar risk among men regarding these chemicals, which are now found in everything from nonstick cookware to take-out containers and carpeting. Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, causes pain and stiffness and involves degeneration of the cartilage in the joints.

It is estimated that shipping produces 4 to 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. In most cases, these ships are powered by diesel fuel. On today's report we learn about an innovative California technology aimed at reducing this pollution. 2007 Switzer Fellow Francisco Donez is an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9.

Pol­i­cy­makers often develop new envi­ron­mental rules and reg­u­la­tions based on the rec­om­men­da­tions of researchers whose exper­tise lie in the envi­ron­mental health sciences. Helen Suh, for example, a newly appointed asso­ciate pro­fessor of health sci­ences in the Bouvé Col­lege of Health Sci­ences, is one of the researchers at the fore­front of helping sci­en­tists and gov­ern­ment offi­cials under­stand air-​​pollution expo­sure and its impact on health.

Until recently, Sue Chiang, 42, had never heard of Firemaster 550. Five years ago, she grew worried that her old, dusty couch would cause allergies, so she sold it. She and her husband bought a burgundy microfiber sofa at J.C. Penney and plunked it in the living room of the Oakland house they moved into in 2008. The couple's two kids, a 4-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, watch TV on it and build forts with the cushions. When they go to bed, Chiang and her husband sit on it and work on their laptops.

We are all just a little bit plastic. Traces of bisphenol A or BPA, a chemical used in plastics production, are widely detected in our bodies and environment. Is this chemical, and its presence in the human body, safe? What is meant by safety? Who defines it, and according to what information? Is It Safe? narrates how the meaning of the safety of industrial chemicals has been historically produced by breakthroughs in environmental health research, which in turn trigger contests among trade associations, lawyers, politicians, and citizen activists to set new regulatory standards.

How can hospitals improve the food everyone eats? Kendra Klein is a 2011 Switzer Fellow working at the intersection of public health and sustainable agri-food systems. In this video she explains what hospitals can do to advance the agenda of healthy food and sustainable food production systems for everyone.