Connecting Environment to Health in Texas & Beyond
The Center for Health and Environment: Education and Research at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin is a hub for multidisciplinary environmental health sciences research and education.
The center brings together experts from across UT Austin and beyond, and its steering committee includes representatives from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, College of Pharmacy, Cockrell School of Engineering, Jackson School of Geosciences and College of Natural Sciences. The center also partners with the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors.
The center works to improve the health of people locally and globally by exploring the effects of environmental exposures borne by air, water and soil. To address health disparities, the center investigates how these exposures disproportionately affect disadvantaged populations, including Black and Latinx/Hispanic communities, as well as those living in poverty.
Areas of Focus
The center rapidly fosters knowledge that improves health by bringing together a critical mass of faculty across disciplines in environmental health, including health impacts of climate change. Sponsored activities include:
- An invited speaker series
- Active working groups led by faculty within CHEER and across the UT campus
- Pilot project funding to encourage environmental health sciences scholarship and research
- Other events to promote engagement and collaboration
The center also engages a range of learners — medical students, undergraduate and graduate students, residents, fellows, faculty and staff — in health and environment education. The center enables sponsorship of graduate students and interdisciplinary postdocs.
Population health is an important focus for the center since environmental exposures, including climate change-related exposures, are distributed geographically and have population-scale effects. These exposures perpetuate health disparities. The center aims to increase awareness of the population health and disparity implications of environmental exposures with the goal of stimulating the cross-sector, systems-level change needed to improve health. This work involves sectors such as health care, housing, urban planning, economics and environmental policy.
CHEER Seminar Series
The Center for Health and Environment: Education and Research hosts a seminar series focusing on the diversity of work being done in environmental health-related research and education.
The series features UT faculty working in environmental health sciences as well as invited, external experts. Information and dates for upcoming seminars can be found on the UT Austin and Dell Med event calendars and through announcements in e-newsletters.
CHEER Early Career Researchers
Center for Health and Environment: Education and Research early career researchers work with the center’s faculty on a range of environmental health topics. They represent the future of enviornmental health research and are key for making meaningful progress on improving environments in support of the health of local communities.
Over a dozen CHEER early career researchers, representing four UT schools and colleges, research the following topics and more:
- The health effects of environmental exposures and the impact of these exposures on health equity
- Infectious disease transmission, strengthening health and surveillance systems, and the design and evaluation of public health interventions
- Zoning and land use planning policies, the generation of air pollution, and racial and ethnic lung disease disparities in the Austin region
- Drinking water microbial ecology and waterborne pathogens
- Darlene Bhavnani, Ph.D., MPH
- Sergio Castellanos, Ph.D., M.S.
- Sarah Chambliss, Ph.D.
- Rebecca Cook, M.D., M.S.
- Emily Croce, Ph.D.
- Katherine Dowdell, Ph.D.
- Emily Hall, MPH
- Emily Hilz, Ph.D.
- Kevin Lanza, Ph.D.
- Pawel Misztal, Ph.D., M.S.
- Trisha M. Parekh, D.O., M.S.
- Elizabeth Widen, Ph.D., RD
- Rebecca A. Zárate, Ph.D., M.A., M.Ed.
- Stephen Zigmund, Ph.D.
Many early career researchers have been supported through CHEER’s pilot project program and have been funded to pursue the following projects and more:
- “Well without wellness? Impact of hydraulic fracturing wells on birth outcomes and mental health in Texas”
- “Tenant and transit rider organizing to combat structural racism and enhance environmental health”
- “The health impacts of eco-stove installation in a rural community in Puebla, Mexico”
- “Assessing the infectivity of drinking-water Legionella pneumophila to elucidate risk”
Featured Publications
- Bhavnani D, Lilley T, Rathouz PJ, Beaudenon-Huibregtse S, Davis MF, McCormack MC, Keet CA, Balcer-Whaley S, Newman M, Matsui EC
- The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, August 2024
The Role of Neighborhood Air Pollution in Disparate Racial and Ethnic Asthma Acute Care Use
- Chambliss SE, Matsui EC, Zarate RA, Zigler CM
- American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, July 2024
- Heffernan C, Koehler K, Zamora ML, Buehler C, Gentner DR, Peng RD, Datta A
- American Journal of Epidemiology, July 2024
- Lauby SC, Lapp HE, Salazar M, Semyrenko S, Chauhan D, Margolis AE, Champagne FA
- PLOS One, June 2024
Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances: The Price of Forever Chemicals
- Sheinhaus DL, Gore AC
- The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, June 2024
- Morales-Grahl E, Hilz EN, Gore AC
- International Journal of Molecular Sciences, June 2024
- Walker KA, Rhodes ST, Liberman DA, Gore AC, Bell MR
- NeuroToxicology, September 2024
- Fandiño-Del-Rio M, Matsui EC, Calafat AM, Koehl R, Botelho JC, Woo H, Boyle M, Hansel NN, McCormack M, Quirós-Alcalá L
- Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, June 2024
- Novick TK, King B
- American Journal of Kidney Diseases , July 2024
- O’Connor A, Resendiz E, Nason L, Eyler AA, Brownson RC, Reis RS, Banchoff A, King AC, Salvo D
- Journal of Urban Health, July 2024
Neighborhood-Level Variability in Asthma-Related Emergency Department Visits in Central Texas
- Zarate RA, Bhavnani D, Chambliss S, Hall EM, Zigler C, Cubbin C, Wilkinson M, Matsui EC
- The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, June 2024
- Vohra-Gupta S, Wood BM, Kim Y, La Frinere-Sandoval QN, Widen EM, Catherine Cubbin
- Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, August 2024