Environmental Health Sciences

The Department of Environmental Health Sciences investigates how the environment affects human health and disease. Its collaborations with environmental groups from NYC, the University, and around the world, have improved the environmental health of communities worldwide.

We strive to achieve this goal through excellence in research, teaching and service. Since 1980, a major organizational theme of the Department has been the framework of Molecular Epidemiology. Originated by faculty in our Department, this field combines laboratory-based, molecular toxicology approaches with a population-based, epidemiological approach to investigating and preventing environmental and occupational diseases. This fundamental paradigm shift now defines the majority of environmental health-related science around the world.

Our faculty is our greatest strength and asset. Its stature was recently highlighted in the 2006-2007 Chronicle of Higher Education, which ranked Environmental Health Sciences departments on the basis of scholarly productivity. The Mailman School’s EHS Department ranked second overall nationally, and first by a wide margin in several key categories such as publications per faculty, citations per faculty, new grants per faculty, and the total value of new grants per faculty.

Over the last 10-15 years, the Department has become extensively involved in collaborative research. Our two Centers, the Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan and the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health and the Department’s single largest research effort, the Superfund Basic Research Program, involve collaborations with faculty from throughout the Medical Center, the Morningside Campus, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in wide-ranging projects in both the United States and abroad. In addition, the Department has long played an active and critical role in the activities of the Columbia Earth Institute.

Our Department is renowned for its active partnership with environmental community groups through the work of the two centers and their related research projects. For example, the Community Outreach and Education Cores of the Centers are frequently cited as outstanding examples of bi-directional cooperation in community-based participatory research and the translation of scientific findings into community action that improves the environment and public health. Additionally, the Superfund Program has strong interactions with state and county agencies in New York and New Jersey on issues related to drinking water quality.

Mission

The mission of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences is to protect and improve health by identifying, evaluating and disseminating knowledge about the impact of environmental exposures on human health and disease. Our academic programs and research activities integrate diverse scientific disciplines that develop public health professionals who will have a role in solving the local, national and global issues presented by these environmental challenges.

History

In 1909, a proposal from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University called for the creation of an institute of public health and preventative medicine. That proposal urged a "new public health" that would integrate medical and social sciences with biostatistics and sanitary engineering. In 1922, the DeLamar Institute of Public Health was created in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. This Institute became the School of Public Health in 1945.

Since its inception, the School of Public Health has retained an emphasis on the role of environment in health as reflected originally in the inclusion of sanitary engineering as a key component. In 1960, the School officially organized a Division of Environmental Sciences under the leadership of Dr. Leonard Goldwater, an expert on the clinical toxicology of mercury, and the Division established a Dr.P.H. program in addition to its M.P.H. program. After Dr. Goldwater retired from Columbia in 1968, the leadership of the Division passed to Dr. Granville Sewell, a civil and sanitary engineer with expertise in the provision of clean drinking water and sanitation systems particularly in underdeveloped countries.

In 1976, Dr. I. Bernard Weinstein, Frode Jensen Professor of Medicine, Professor of Genetics and Development, and Director of the Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Center, was named the new Head of the Division. Under Dr. Weinstein, the Division grew with the addition of new faculty and a focus on the field of environmental carcinogenesis. Dr. Weinstein along with other key faculty members pioneered the “new” field of molecular epidemiology, which combines laboratory-based, molecular toxicology approaches with a population-based, epidemiological approach to investigating and preventing environmental and occupational diseases.

In 1991, Dr. Weinstein stepped down, and Dr. Joseph Graziano, a pharmacologist/ toxicologist with expertise on the heath effects of lead, was named the new Head of the Division. Dr. Graziano continued to expand the Division by recruiting new faculty with expertise in the areas of air pollution and environmental respiratory diseases, and in heavy metal toxicology and environmental neuro-degenerative diseases. One of these recruits, Dr. Patrick Kinney, was recently named the Director of the new Program in Climate and Health.

During Dr. Graziano’s tenure, the Division became the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the newly named Mailman School of Public Health. The Department added two large centers and a program project: the NIEHS-funded Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan (CEHNM), which has an emphasis on cancer, respiratory diseases, and neuro-degenerative diseases in the urban environment; the NIEHS/EPA-funded Columbia Children's Center for Environmental Health (CCCEH), which has an emphasis on the environmental causes of childhood cancer, respiratory diseases, and neuro-developmental disorders; and the Columbia Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP), which is examining the health hazards of arsenic and manganese in drinking water. The interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Environmental Health Sciences was also added at this time.

In 2002, Dr. Graziano handed over departmental leadership to Dr. Paul Brandt-Rauf, a physician (and a DrPH graduate in EHS) with expertise in occupational/environmental medicine and environmental carcinogenesis. Since then, the CEHNM, the CCCEH and the SBRP programs continued to thrive and all three have renewed funding for several years. The areas of interest of the Department have continued to expand, particularly through increased participation in the Columbia Earth Institute, a University-wide, collaborative, inter-disciplinary effort.

With the departure of Dr. Brandt-Rauf in 2008 to become the Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the interim leadership of the Department returned to Dr. Graziano who for two years did an excellent job in continuing to strengthen the Department.

In April 2010, distinguished scientist Dr. Tomás R. Guilarte joined the Mailman School as the new Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.

A pioneer in examining the impact of the environment on the central nervous system, Dr. Guilarte is widely acknowledged for his ground-breaking work in the fields of neuroscience and neurotoxicology.

August 2011