Research
The driving idea of my research has been that in order to better understand the impact of the environment on human health we must do a better job of characterizing environmental risk factors and exposures for human health research. This has motivated my interests in exposure science, geographic information science, climatology and meteorology, and environmental informatics. As a researcher, I am always seeking to address environmental health questions that are timely and important, which in my experience, has always required learning cutting-edge tools at the interface of exposure science, epidemiology, and biostatistics.
Latest Projects:
Developing Exposure Characterization Tools to Address Complex Exposures within ECHO (funded by NIH grant number 5U2COD023375-02 )
Understanding the links between environmental conditions and child health outcomes presents an extraordinarily complex task. Historically, this has been addressed using a ‘one exposure one health effect’ paradigm in an effort to isolate the risk factors of most concern. However, it is now well recognized that this (restricted) paradigm is less than ideal - as ‘true’ exposures reflect complex environmental mixtures and thus consist of multiple exposure factors. The major goal of this proposal is to improve health research of complex environmental exposures by developing exposure characterizations for the assessment of associations between complex environmental exposures and consequences on adverse health in children.
Novel Approaches for Linking Air Quality Mixtures, Climate, and Human Health (funded by NIEHS grant number R00ES023475)
Air pollution and climate have a significant impact on public health. This proposal will develop approaches that improve studies linking air pollution, climate, and human health. Results will advance current understanding of the health effects of air pollution and facilitate a research framework for the investigation of the impacts of a changing climate.
Charleston Community Air Monitoring Network (CCAMN)
Neighborhood level air quality is an important determinant of health and quality of life; however, most communities lack localized information on air pollution. CCAMN seeks to provide timely data that can increase community and resident understanding of local air quality. For more info on the project click here.
South Carolina Morbidity Air Pollution Study (SCMAPS)
SCMAPS is a project aimed at investigating the impacts of air pollution in South Carolina. This embodies health effects studies of air pollution, spatial analyses of air pollution related health outcomes, and modeling of air pollution exposures.