Global Public Health

On a PHAST track

Public health students’ experiences beyond the classroom prepare them for success

The Public Health Action Support Team (PHAST) at Michigan Public Health offers students hands-on experience in public health. During the most recent annual trip to Grenada, students worked on projects like promoting voluntary blood donation, enhancing Alzheimer’s care, and supporting disability services, demonstrating the vital role of experiential learning and community engagement in driving public health initiatives.

Tackling noise closer to home

In addition to the work on e-waste, Rick Neitzel and the Exposure Research Lab continue to study how noise affects health. In Detroit and throughout the United States, interstate freeways were historically built through African American communities often with the goal of breaking them up or segregating them from white communities.

Exposure Research Lab helps informal e-waste recyclers, communities in other countries

The Exposure Research Lab at the University of Michigan School of Public Health has been studying how to make this informal recycling work safer. Rick Neitzel founded the lab when he arrived at Michigan Public Health in 2011. The lab studies how to keep workers safe and healthy throughout their careers, with particular focus on noise exposure and injury risks.

Sara Adar's research informs the EPA and helps safeguard kids

‘Changing the world because of my science’

Sara Adar jokes that her kids have grown tired of her antics—as she puts it, they are “very much over me.” Although her 14-year-old twins still call her “Science Mom,” they no longer participate when she stops the car at a moment’s notice to go play in traffic, testing some level of environmental disturbance. Fortunately for the rest of us, Adar is still “playing in traffic.”

'Our health is inextricably linked to our environment'

Dean F. DuBois Bowman

As climate change intensifies, it’s clearer than ever that our health is inextricably linked to our environment. In this issue of Findings, we explore the many ways in which our well-being is impacted by the air we breathe, water we drink, toxins we encounter and food we eat. However, the impacts are not the same for everyone.

Exploring environmental equity and impacts on human health

Environmental health experts at the University of Michigan School of Public Health are immersed in understanding the connection between the health of individuals and communities and the environment—whether it’s the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat, products we use or places we live and work.