About Us
Dedicated to creating new knowledge about the totality of environmental conditions understood as the envirome and how the envirome shapes cardiovascular and metabolic health.
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The Division of Environmental Medicine was created in 2018 within the Department of Medicine with the mission to understand the relationships between the environment and human health towards preventing and mitigating chronic disease through environmental adaptations and interventions.
The division supports a multidisciplinary research program focused on studying how environmental conditions and characteristics relate to the development, mitigation or prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic disease (e.g. heart disease, diabetes). Faculty within the division conduct place-based clinical and basic research, educate the next generation of environmental health and medicine scientists, and engage with Louisville communities.
Environmental Medicine
Environmental medicine is a multidisciplinary field involving environmental science, medicine, chemistry, toxicology, epidemiology, sociology and other disciplines. It is a specialized form of environmental health, a branch of public health, which advances health and well-being by identifying and limiting exposure to hazardous agents in the environment. Environmental medicine scientists study how these environmental exposures are related to the causes and effects of disease and test interventions that can prevent and mitigate disease formation and progression.
Research Foci
Natural Environment
- Effects of green environments on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases
- Relationships between components of nature, such as pollen and biodiversity, on human health
- How fundamental systems of the ecosphere (air, water and soil) contribute to human health, wellbeing or disease
Social Environment
- Effects of ambient and roadway air pollution (PM2.5) on cardiovascular and metabolic disease progression
- Effects of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on the cardiovascular and metabolic disease progression
- Developing methods to spatially visualize pollution and disease risk and burdens among communities
Personal Environment
- Effects of tobacco and vaping on cardiovascular and metabolic disease progression
- Relationships between lifestyle patterns (sleep, diet, exercise) and cardiovascular and metabolic disease progression
- Developing novel approaches to measure environmental factors that impact human health, wellbeing or disease
The Envirome
The Human Envirome is the complete set of natural, social and personal conditions that shape each person's health. Unique to every person, over the course of their lifetime, their envirome regulates and influences development, disease risk, physical and mental health and lifespan.
The Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute is an affiliated research institute within the Division of Environmental Medicine. Researchers within the Envirome Institute study how conditions of the human envirome promote health or instigate disease.
