Background: Federal housing assistance is an important policy tool to ensure housing security for low-income households. Less is known about its impact on residential environmental exposures, particularly lead. Objectives: We conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the association between federal housing assistance and blood lead levels (BLLs) in a nationally representative US sample age 6 y and older eligible for housing assistance. Methods: We used the 1999–2018 National Health and…
HOT TOPICS IN URBAN POLICY AND HEALTH: PROTECTING OUTDOOR WORKERS FROM EXTREME HEAT
Hot Topics in Urban Policy and Health: In a new UHC Policy Core blog series, we’ll highlight important topics in urban policy with implications for health and health equity. We hope the series will help our collaborators learn about various policy areas and potentially spark interest in future research and practice experience on these policies. This month we start with a (literal) hot topic in health policy: extreme heat and worker protections. Summer…
HEI announces 2023 Walter A. Rosenblith awardees
HEI is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Walter A. Rosenblith Award: Dr. Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, Columbia University, Project Title: What’s in the air? Engaging Native American youth in the Northern plains to reduce air pollution and Dr. Rachel Nethery, Harvard University, Project Title: Designing optimal policies for reducing air pollution-related health inequities. The Rosenblith Award provides 3 years of funding for early career investigators studying the health effects of air pollution.…
Continue reading “HEI announces 2023 Walter A. Rosenblith awardees”
Book: Kneeling Before Corn
Recuperating More-than-Human Intimacies on the Salvadoran Milpa The cultivation of the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) on subsistence farms in El Salvador is a multispecies, world-making, and ongoing process. Milpa describes a small subsistence corn farm. It is derived from the word milli (‘field’, or a piece of land under active cultivation) in Nahuatl. The milpa is a farming practice that uses perennial, intercropping, and swidden (fire and fallow) techniques…
Welcome to the Mountain West Climate-Health Engagement Hub
A collaborative partnership to promote climate resilience and health equity for rural and urban communities This project seeks to understand how rural and urban communities in the Mountain West are experiencing climate stressors (drought, air quality, and wildfires), and what current and future actions they envision to build climate resilience and advance health equity. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and led by a Colorado School of Public Health based team,…
Continue reading “Welcome to the Mountain West Climate-Health Engagement Hub”
PFAS, Phenols, and Parabens: Links to Hormone-Mediated Cancers
A number of cancers are hormone-mediated. These include prostate, breast, ovarian, endometrial, testicular, and thyroid cancer, as well as melanoma. Many industrial chemicals found in consumer products and in the environment are endocrine disruptors, and could influence risk of hormone-mediated cancers. Dr. Max Aung, JPB Fellow, presented the results of a recent study that examined the relationship between certain chemicals and risk of hormone-mediated cancers. Specifically, the study examined current…
Continue reading “PFAS, Phenols, and Parabens: Links to Hormone-Mediated Cancers”
Attorney General Bonta Warns Companies of Responsibility to Disclose Presence of Dangerous PFAS
LOS ANGELES — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued an enforcement advisory letter to manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of food packaging and cookware, alerting them to their obligations under Assembly Bill 1200 (AB 1200). AB 1200 is a recently enacted statute that restricts the presence of PFAS in food packaging and imposes labeling disclosure requirements for cookware. Attorney General Bonta also issued a consumer alert with tips for reducing PFAS exposures. Commonly referred to as “forever chemicals,”…
USC launches liver disease study as part of $50.3 million “multi-omics” consortium
The six-site consortium, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will study individuals from ancestrally diverse populations that are traditionally underrepresented in medical research. The Keck School of Medicine of USC has received funding from the National Institutes of Health as part of a five-year, $50.3 million “multi-omics” study of human health and disease involving six sites. Researchers in the Multi-Omics for Health and Disease consortium will study fatty liver disease, hepatocellular…
Emory-led research first to detect ‘forever chemicals’ in newborns
An Emory University-led study into the exposures of pregnant women to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals,” is believed to be the first to detect PFAS in newborns and show that exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy increases the likelihood of preterm or early term births. The study, which was recently published in Nature Communications, studied blood samples from 267 newborns between 2016 and 2020 and discovered…
Continue reading “Emory-led research first to detect ‘forever chemicals’ in newborns”
JPB Fellows Workshop at IAPHS!
Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS) Conference. When & where: Baltimore, Maryland Monday, October 2, 2023, at 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM EDT Fellows Katie Dickerson, Hector Olvera, and Allison Appleton, who are founding members of SERG (Socio-Environmental Research Group), will lead the workshop titled “Strengthening Research for Action at the Intersection of Environmental & Social Determinants of Health” during the IAPHS Conference. This capacity-building workshop aims to provide social…