The goal of the UCSF Environmental Research and Translation for Health (EaRTH) Center is to accelerate the pace of discovery and translation of environmental impacts on health, including those at increased risk due to factors such as life stage or higher exposure, to improve human health for everyone across the lifespan.
We are organized around four goals that underscore our vision of a future where everyone thrives in a healthy and just environment. They are:
- Catalyze new environmental health research by providing expertise, technologies, and tools;
- Foster collaborations between historically separated scientific disciplines (e.g. epidemiology, laboratory and data sciences, toxicology, chemistry, medicine) and clinical, policy, and community groups;
- Mentor and grow the next generation of environmental health researchers and clinical leaders; and;
- Accelerate health-positive systemic changes by disseminating our ground-breaking science to decisionmakers to inform and improve evidence-based clinical care and public policies.
We characterize environmental exposures (toxic chemicals, extreme weather events, and social stressors) individually and cumulatively in populations with emphasis on populations with increased risk due to factors such as life stage or higher exposure.
We identify how environmental exposures during susceptible periods, including reproduction, pregnancy and early development, and to highly-exposed populations influence health.
We leverage cutting-edge, high-throughput technologies to predict health risks of chemicals and relevant biological pathways.
Transforming the approach to studying harmful environmental pollutants that undermine health and human development and contribute to chronic disease and health inequities
Current approaches to uncover and address complex chronic diseases do not adequately incorporate the role of environmental factors, particularly during critical reproductive and developmental stages. Solving this complex problem requires partnerships across disciplines; mobilization of technology toward identification, intervention, and prevention; and education of future scientists, clinicians, and the public.
The EaRTH Center supports research in environmental health sciences with the Translational Research Support Core, Bioassay Facility Core, Community Engagement Core, and a Pilot Project Program that will increase environmental health research at UCSF. These Cores converge to understand how exposures during development influence disease and to intervene and prevent exposures to improve health throughout the lifespan.
The EaRTH’s Center current membership of over 50 faculty spans all four UCSF schools and 16 disciplines and they are poised to promote and advance synergistic, multidisciplinary environmental health research.
