Environmental & Public Health

Fellow Story

One health threat that affects all of Connecticut's residents: climate change

It is abundantly clear that climate change is not a future event; it is happening now, and it affects our lives, and our health. In a new report from The Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, Fellow Laura Bozzi and Robert Dubrow tracked 19 indicators on climate change and health in Connecticut across four broad categories — temperature, extreme events, infectious diseases, and air quality — and found disturbing trends in each.
October 27, 2020
Fellow Story

Vaquero quoted in LA Times on Exide bankruptcy and environmental cleanup uncertainty

For decades, families across a swath of southeast Los Angeles County have lived in an environmental disaster zone, their kids playing in yards polluted with brain-damaging lead while they wait on a state agency to remove contaminated soil from thousands of homes. Now, the cleanup faces even greater uncertainty. A bankruptcy plan by Exide Technologies, which operated the now-closed lead-acid battery smelter in Vernon that is blamed for the pollution, would allow the site to be abandoned with the remediation unfinished.
October 19, 2020
Fellow Story

Phasing out is not enough — the problem with fluorinated chemicals in wildlife

Editor's note: The following piece authored by Anna Robuck was first published on The Hill's website.
October 10, 2020
Fellow Story

Swain quoted in CNN article on West's wildfires, connection to climate change

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September 15, 2020
Fellow Story

Cohen's research on false positives changes Tour de France COVID-19 testing procedures

Dr Andrew N. Cohen of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions has been vocal in his criticism of ignoring the importance of false positives and the global strategy of diagnosing COVID-19 based on a single positive test in the absence of any symptoms. Now organizers of the Tour de France have taken his concerns seriously and changed the testing protocol for staff and riders at the event.
September 10, 2020
Fellow Story

Gutierrez quoted in press release on Outdoors for All Act

The United States House of Representatives has passed the “Moving Forward Act” (H.R.2), legislation that will provide $1.5 trillion for transportation, climate resilience, and other infrastructure. The legislation also includes the Outdoors for All Act, which dedicates funding for city parks through the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Outdoor Resources Legacy Partnership Program (ORLP).
August 14, 2020
Fellow Story

You have pesticides in your body. But an organic diet can reduce them by 70%

Never before have we sprayed so much of a chemical on our food, on our yards, on our children’s playgrounds. So it’s no surprise that Roundup – the world’s most widely used weedkiller – shows up in our bodies. What is perhaps surprising is how easy it is to get it out.
August 14, 2020
Fellow Story

Dolin publishes new book on how understanding hurricanes can help us prepare

The long and devastating history of hurricanes can help society make more informed decisions about how to confront what is likely to be an increasingly tempestuous future—if we pay attention, writes Eric Jay Dolin.
August 14, 2020
Fellow Story

Robuck wins NIEHS KC Donnelly Externship for research on PFAS

Anna Robuck is doctoral student working with Rainer Lohmann, Ph.D., at the University of Rhode Island SRP Center. For her externship, Robuck will travel to Research Triangle Park, North Carolina to work with Mark Strynar, Ph.D., and James McCord, Ph.D., at the U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development.
July 16, 2020
Fellow Story

What zebra mussels can tell us about errors in coronavirus tests

While PCR-based diagnostic tests have been used in medicine for decades, they have never been used as they being used now, for broad screening of the general public, with a single positive result accepted as proof of infection without regard to clinical signs or symptoms or epidemiological exposure. Andrew Cohen had the opportunity in the environmental setting—unlike anyone in the medical profession—to observe the disaster that unfolds when these tests are used in this way. His research is now informing medicine, as many scientists who usually have nothing to do with viruses or infectious disease are turning their attention to COVID-19.
June 24, 2020