Green Infrastructure (GI) has gained recognition for its notable role in climate change mitigation and urban resilience. Meanwhile, there is a growing body of literature revealing the uneven distribution of GI from environmental justice perspective. Given the role of GI, the distribution should also be explored in a social vulnerability context and combining green and gray infrastructure. However, the distribution of GI, sewer pipelines, and their relationship with social vulnerability…
Federal Housing Programs Protect Residents from Lead Exposure
Americans already living in housing supported by federal housing assistance programs have significantly lower blood lead levels than counterparts who would later join these programs, according to new research led by environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Tufts Medical Center. The findings appear in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives(link is external and opens in a new window). “Living in federally-supported housing—especially public housing—limited opportunities…
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On the Social Side of the Climate Crisis
On Thursday, The Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) kicked off their annual conference at SIS, co-sponsored by CECE, American Institutes for Research, Deloitte, the MacArthur Foundation, Science Advances, AU’s School of International Service, The Department of Environment Development and Health, and the Hewlett Foundation. This was a significant landmark for ESS, because under the leadership of SIS Professor and CECE Director, Dr. Dana Fisher, 2024 was the first year that the topic of…
Slow violence to disasters: Exploring racialized topographies and contextualizing social vulnerability to flood and other environmental risks
In traditional disaster scholarship, social vulnerability is a framework that leverages individual variables to explore stratification in the instance of disaster. As this body of literature has grown, we have lost more context as to why these variables are used within various applications. However, slow violence is another framework that does not necessarily focus on disasters traditionally but provides the social and political context to understand why certain individuals may…
NIEHS Partnerships for Environmental Public Health reinvigorates network
Community engagement experts gathered at annual meeting to share strategies and opportunities for engaging diverse teams in public health. The Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) network meeting Feb. 20-22 brought together NIEHS-funded grantees, community leaders, and NIEHS staff for the first in-person meeting since 2020. PEPH 2024 broke down programmatic silos to create a space for its nearly 200 attendees to easily converse, learn from, and engage with those outside of…
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Disparities in sleep health and insomnia may begin at a young age
Black children were 2.6 times more likely to experience insomnia that begins in childhood and persists through young adulthood compared to white children Children and teens from racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by persistent insomnia symptoms that begin in childhood and continue through young adulthood, according to a new study. This study is one of the first to look at how childhood insomnia symptoms evolve over the…
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Exploring the Nexus of Energy Burden, Social Capital, and Environmental Quality in Shaping Health in US Counties
The United States spends more on health care than any other OECD country, yet the nation’s health is declining. Recent research has identified multiple sources for this decline, including one’s position in social and economic structures, environmental quality, and individual and collective social capital. This paper assesses the primary hypotheses that the health effects of household energy burden, social capital and environmental quality on aggregated community health levels remain while…
Tighter regulations are reducing the risk of lead exposure in public housing
A new study finds that tougher inspection standards have led to lower blood lead levels among tenants — although any exposure is still too much. A new study suggests that lead inspection and removal regulations for public housing have been effective over time, reducing the risk of lead exposure for residents. After decades of high lead levels in its housing stock, it’s a sliver of hope for the U.S. Department…
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Federal Housing Assistance and Blood Lead Levels in a Nationally Representative US Sample Age 6 and Older: NHANES, 1999–2018
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…
Lead from old paint and pipes is still a harmful and deadly hazard in millions of US homes
Lead is a potent neurotoxin that causes severe health effects such as neurological damage, organ failure and death. Widely used in products such as paint and gasoline until the late 1970s, lead continues to contaminate environments and harm the health of people around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1 million deaths each year are attributable to lead poisoning, with the highest exposures in developing nations. Lead continues…