The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is the leading biomedical research institution in the United States whose mission is to support research that seeks to understand how environmental exposures affect human health. NIEHS possesses a longstanding interest in the health effects of agrochemical and other environmental exposures in rural America, including pesticides, to...

Edi tor ’s Note : NEHA strives to provide up-to-date and relevant information on environmental health and to build partnerships in the profession. In pursuit of these goals, we feature a column from the Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in every issue of the Journal. In this column, EHSB and guest authors from across CDC will hig...

Many existing cohort studies initially designed to investigate disease risk as a function of environmental exposures have collected genomic data in recent years with the objective of testing for gene-environment interaction (G × E) effects. In environmental epidemiology, interest in G × E arises primarily after a significant effect of the environmental exposure has been documented. Cohort studi...

Prenatal and childhood environmental exposures are an underrecognized primary cause of intellectual and other developmental disabilities. In addition, individuals with established disabilities are vulnerable to further harm from subsequent environmental exposures. In individuals with communicative impairment or limited ability to independently escape from hazards, these subsequent exposures, to...

In observational research, evidence is usually derived from multiple studies, and any single result is rarely considered sufficient for public health decision making. Despite more than five decades of research and thousands of studies published, the ability to draw robust conclusions regarding the presence or absence of causal links between specific environmental exposures and human health rema...

Setting a national environmental health research agenda requires broad public input, including that from leading scientists, health care professionals, and communities. Contributions from these diverse constituencies are essential to formulating a research and education strategy that both advances our understanding of the causes and mechanisms of environmentally related diseases and translates ...

We explore the relationship between current research directions in human health and environmental and public health policy. Specifically, we suggest there is a link between the continuing emphasis in biomedical research on individualized, therapeutic solutions to human disease and the increased reliance on individual choice in response to environmental and/or public health threats. We suggest t...

The causes of cancer health disparities amongst Pacific Islanders and other racial groups are complex and multifactorial. Both biologic and non biologic determinants have been identified as causal factors. Racial/ethnic classification can be used as a surrogate for non biologic determinants such as place of geographic origin, socioeconomic status, cultural practices, and diet. Given that non bi...

Previous evidence reviewed in Schizophrenia Bulletin suggests the importance of a range of different environmental factors in the development of psychotic illness. It is unlikely, however, that the diversity of environmental influences associated with schizophrenia can be linked to as many different underlying mechanisms. There is evidence that environmental exposures may induce, in interaction...

INTRODUCTION Prior cross-national studies of socioeconomic inequalities in obesity have only compared summary indices of inequality but not specific, policy-relevant dimensions of inequality: (a) shape of the socioeconomic gradient in obesity, (b) magnitude of differentials in obesity across socioeconomic levels and, (c) level of obesity at any given socioeconomic level. We use unique data on t...