As fossil fuels, plastics, and other pollutants drive an increase in chronic disease, scientists from around the U.S. who study how toxics impact health educated policymakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC about the importance of the work of the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) funded P30 centers.
P30 research centers are the backbone of environmental health research in the U.S. and focus on a wide range of issues including how air pollution, climate, hazardous chemicals, and wildfires affect health, pregnancy, and child development. Each P30 center has a different focus, although there is some overlap.
The UCSF EaRTH Center is one of the NIEHS-supported centers. The Environmental Research and Translation for Health (EaRTH) Center works to accelerate the pace of environmental health discoveries through cutting-edge research technologies and multi-disciplinary collaborations to identify and quantify how pollutants impact health. EaRTH also embeds environmental health literacy within health care to prevent chronic disease and supports communities bearing the brunt of environmental racism and social inequities by driving systemic change that promotes health and health equity.
Scientific discoveries
NIEHS P30 centers have achieved some major scientific breakthroughs, including identifying a link between PFAS and cancer in women, and PFAS and infertility, wildfire PM2.5 exposure and preterm birth, as well as identifying 55 chemicals not previously reported in people. The EaRTH Center, for example, supported the first systematic review of 2,000 studies examining the impact of microplastics on health, finding links between microplastics and digestive cancers, infertility, and found preliminary evidence of harm to the respiratory system.
Award-winning research
Many of the papers produced by P30 scientists have won awards, including a Best Paper Award of the year from ES&T, and extramural research awards from NIEHS. The research has also generated thousands of media articles and a number of them have ranked in the top 10 of most viewed and cited research according to Altmetric.
Environmental justice
P30 center researchers also collaborate with and support their local communities. Underrepresented medical students who are part of EaRTH’s Environmental Scholars Program (ESP) are mapping toxic contaminants in Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP), a highly polluted San Francisco industrial community that is home to thousands of people of color. EaRTH fellows are also creating scientific and community-based recommendations to remediate coastal contaminated sites before sea level rises significantly. And EaRTH researchers are examining how multiple chemical exposures, including pesticides, increase cancer risk for pregnant women among a predominantly Latinx population in California’s Central Valley.
Changing health care
EaRTH also works to transform medical education and improve patient outcomes by integrating environmental health in medical school curricula and collaborating with health care professional societies, such as the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), to develop translational materials for OBGYNs and their patients on the impacts of harmful chemicals and climate change on pregnancy.
NIEHS P30 centers
There are more than 20 P30 environmental health research centers located around the country, including in Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
Learn more about NIEHS and the P30 centers here: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/centers/core
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