Investigating environmental links to disease
Our ground-breaking, multidisciplinary research answers important questions on how chemicals and contaminants in our homes and environment affect fertility, pregnancy, fetal and child development, and health equity. We prioritize filling gaps in knowledge that support clinical decision-making and public policy.
We have written or contributed to more than 180 studies on health and the environment with 23 studies published in peer-reviewed journals in 2020 alone.
UCSF Study Finds Evidence of 55 Chemicals Never Before Reported in People
Scientists at UC San Francisco have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 “mystery chemicals,” whose sources and uses are unknown. The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources.
The study was published March 17 in Environmental Science & Technology.
We study how harmful chemicals put into our air, food, water, homes, products, and workplaces affect pregnancy, child development, and health.
Plastics are a petro-chemical product packed with endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can harm pregnancy, birth outcomes, neurodevelopment, and immune systems.
We examine how climate is impacting women's and children's health and how to protect pregnant people from wildfire smoke.
The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) is the largest NIH-funded study to date to explore how chemicals and pollutants in our environment impact pregnancy and child development.
The Discovering cancer Risks from Environmental contaminants And Maternal/child health (DREAM) project collected data to explore how chemicals put in our air, food, and water increase cancer risk.
In partnership with Stanford University, the Endometriosis Center for Action, Community Engagement and Training (ENACT) will work to improve endometriosis diagnosis and treatment by exploring the origins and environmental links to this disease.
PRHE conducts groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary research that answers important questions of how chemicals and contaminants in our homes and environment affect fertility, pregnancy, and fetal and child development. PRHE also mentors and trains the next generation of environmental health scientists.
Published Studies
Our goal was to evaluate the relationship between prenatal fluoride exposure and pregnancy outcomes.
Aromatic amines (AAs) have rarely been studied in the context of pregnancy despite their ubiquity and known toxicity. To our knowledge, no study has investigated the relationship between AAs and F2-isoprostanes, which are linked to adverse maternal and child health outcomes.
Aromatic amines (AAs) have rarely been studied in the context of pregnancy despite their ubiquity and known toxicity. To our knowledge, no study has investigated the relationship between AAs and F2-isoprostanes, which are linked to adverse maternal and child health outcomes.
Despite the recent increase in the intensity and frequency of wildland fires in the United States, there is limited investigation into the impact of wildland fires on pregnancy-related mortality and morbidity. This study examined associations between maternal exposure to wildland fire smoke and severe maternal morbidity (SMM), or potentially life-threatening complications related to pregnancy or delivery, in a population-based cohort of California birthing people between 2007 and 2018.
Birth defects are a leading cause of infant mortality and an important contributor to childhood and adult morbidity. Major structural birth defects are diagnosed in 2 to 4% of infants in the United States. Environmental contaminants, including air pollution, have been suggested as potential risk factors for these anomalies.
Wildland fire smoke has been linked to preterm birth, but the relative contributions of exposure frequency, duration, and intensity remain unclear. We defined a smoke wave as two or more consecutive days with wildfire-specific particulate matter of aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 microns concentrations exceeding thresholds (5 and 20 μg/m3) and assessed the associations of preterm birth with several different metrics of exposure based on smoke waves experienced during pregnancy.
Time-activity pattern data are components of EPA’s efforts to develop soil and dust ingestion rate recommendations for use in risk assessment. The existing database of activity pattern data used for this purpose is comprised mostly of studies designed to estimate exposure to air pollution that are decades old, limiting their applicability to estimating soil and dust ingestion.