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Center
Programs
Environmental
Epidemiology
Epidemiological
methods are useful not only for investigating chronic and infectious
diseases and other traditional applications, but also for exploring
and understanding problems of substance abuse and interpersonal violence
that plague American society. Epidemiologists have had a long-term interest
in determining etiology or disease causation. Their methodological approaches
can provide the knowledge for preventing illness through the design
of intervention programs. As the crisis in health care intensifies in
the United States, the goal of primary prevention becomes more important
for society. Environmental epidemiology provides a refined capability
for scientists in epidemiology to relate exposure of populations to
the causation of disease, and thus provides enhanced capabilities for
designing primary prevention programs.
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Environmental
Health Sciences
As
technology advances and the importance of national boundaries diminish,
there is a growing need to understand the interactions of biological,
chemical and physical agents with the environment. In the past, interaction
of these agents has manifested itself in outbreaks of disease in human,
animal and plant communities. Today, with the threats from man-made
changes in both the atmosphere and from pollution of the environment
on the earth, scientists, professionals, and citizens must be trained
to appreciate the complexity of modern environmental problems. Researchers
within the Environmental Health Sciences Program conduct research on
questions of vital importance to the public and private sectors associated
with environmental analysis and evaluation, environmental design and
behavior, and on related questions for the formulation of environmental
and health policy. These questions reflect an overarching concern with
the effects of the natural and built environments on the health and
social well-being of humans.
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Occupational
and Environmental Medicine
The
Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine is a core program
of the UCI Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. The primary
research interests of the program's faculty include environmental and
occupational asthma, neurological and immunological effects of pesticides,
cardiovascular effects of occupational stress, and delivery of occupational
health services. The Division's major teaching activity is the UCI Occupational
Medicine residency program. For more information about the Occupational
and Environmental Medicine program, please visit the Division's
web site.
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Toxicology
Toxicology
involves the scientific study of the entry, distribution, biotransformation,
and mechanism of action of chemical agents harmful to the body. The
Program interprets environmental toxicology as the study of the effects
and mechanisms of action of hazardous chemicals in food, air, water,
and soil, in the home, workplace, and the community, and considers experimentally
and theoretically such diverse research problems as (1) toxicological
evaluation of environmental chemicals such as air and water pollutants,
food additives, industrial wastes, and agricultural adjuvants at the
molecular, cellular and organism levels; (2) mechanisms of action in
chemical carcinogenesis and mutagenesis; (3) the molecular pathology
of tissue injury in acute toxicity; and (4) scientific principles involved
in extrapolating from laboratory animal data to expected effects on
human health in environmental exposures.
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