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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Environmental Medicine
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, with the goal of 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, and prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, including heart disease and 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 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 that advances health and well-being by identifying and limiting exposure to hazardous agents in the environment.
Environmental medicine scientists study how 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, and human health
- How fundamental systems of the ecosphere, including air, water, and soil, contribute to human health, well-being, or disease
Social Environment
- Effects of ambient and roadway air pollution, including particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5), on cardiovascular and metabolic disease progression
- Effects of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on 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
