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Harvard Chan NIEHS Center for Environmental Health

The Harvard Chan National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Center for Environmental Health is a coordinated set of resources and facilities supporting environmental health research and training activities throughout the greater Boston area. The center promotes integration between basic and applied environmental science, and fosters collaborations that cross departmental and institutional boundaries.

Location

665 Huntington Ave.
Building 1-1402
Boston, MA 02115

News

  • June 8, 2021

    New research: A benchmark dose analysis for maternal pregnancy urine-fluoride and IQ in children

    Adjunct Professor of Environmental Health Philippe Grandjean and a team of researchers calculated benchmark dose (BMD) results based on the results from two North American prospective studies of prenatal fluoride exposure and childhood cognition. The manuscript was accepted in June last year, and the print version became available April 18, 2022 in Risk Analysis Volume 42, Issue 3, pp 439-449. The BMD results suggest that water fluoridation exceeds the exposure that causes a decline in IQ of at least 1 point.

    Philippe Grandjean
  • May 11, 2021

    WBEZ Chicago/NPR: Harvard study says clean electricity will prevent deaths

    Center member Jonathan Buonocore, research scientist at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, speaks with NPR on how clean electricity will save lives.

    Haze over a city
  • May 5, 2021

    Harvard Chan School study shows negative impacts of burning natural gas and biomass have surpassed coal generation in many states

    New inventory of air pollution impacts from stationary sources over past decade shows trend may continue. A new study finds that burning natural gas, biomass, and wood now have more negative health impacts than burning coal in many states, and is a trend that may continue. The study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published in Environmental Research Letters is the first to provide an inventory of the health impacts of each type of fuel burned at stationary sources from 2008-2017, based on available data.

    Smoke billowing from chimneys
  • April 1, 2021

    Chemicals in hair products, making rent as a grad student, and more: A conversation with Dr. Tamarra James-Todd

    Our Center’s Organic Chemicals Research Core Director Tamarra James-Todd, Mark and Catherine Winkler Assistant Professor of Environmental Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discussed her background and research in an April 1, 2021, Q&A on the Environmental Health Defense Fund Health blog.

    Tamarra James-Todd
  • February 24, 2021

    The nexus of climate and health: Marc Weisskopf presents on air pollution and the brain

    Center Director Marc Weisskopf delivered his presentation during a webinar (Feb 23-24, 2021) hosted by the Center for Global Health Delivery, the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy…

    Air pollution and cognitive function
  • February 18, 2021

    Center’s Jin-Ah Park helps investigate cellular host factors required for SARS-CoV-2 infection

    The paper, titled “In well-differentiated primary human bronchial epithelial cells, TGF-β1 and TGF-β2 induce expression of furin,” was recently published by the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

  • May 15, 2020

    Center Member Nancy Krieger leads geocoding COVID-19 and inequities analyses

    Center Member Nancy Krieger and colleagues are utilizing their Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project to “document inequities in the population distribution of COVID-19.” They make methods, data, & code freely available for analyses.

    Nancy Krieger
  • January 17, 2020

    Vaping-induced acute lung injury

    Read David Christiani’s editorial (+audio interview) in The New England Journal of Medicine on the epidemic of vaping by young people and related severe lung injuries.

    Christiani NEJM interview screen shot
  • August 25, 2019

    Center Director Marc Weisskopf delivers ISEE keynote lecture

    Center Director Marc Weisskopf delivered the Keynote Lecture on “Air Pollution and the Brain” during the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) Annual Conference, held Aug. 25-28, 2019. Related Topics…

    Marc Weisskopf
  • July 25, 2019

    Professional sports and health

    Center Director Marc Weisskopf led a new research comparing the health of athletes in the National Football League and Major League Baseball. The study looked at 6,000 athletes between the years of 1979 and 2013. During that period, there were 517 deaths among NFL players and 431 deaths among MLB players, translating into a 26% higher mortality rate among football players compared with baseball players. The findings showed that while NFL players died of neurodegenerative diseases at a higher rate than MLB players, both groups of athletes were more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than brain diseases.

    Marc Weisskopf