Built Environment

For the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS), 2024 was a year of behind-the-scenes change, as we thanked Professor Michael Yost for his 10-year tenure as department chair and welcomed

At the end of this month, Michael Yost will be stepping down after a 10-year term as chair of the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS).

Assistant Professor Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen joined the UW last year with a joint appointment in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) and the Department of Urban Design and Planning (UDP) in the College of Built Environments.

Seattle is routinely listed as one of the most walkable and bike-friendly cities in the nation.

DEOHS is collaborating with cross-sector partners to prepare for a hotter future in the Pacific Northwest

Two teams of researchers from the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciencs (DEOHS) and their partners recently received grants from the UW Population Health Initiative for projects focusing on supporting healthy home environments in Washington’s Yakima Valley and understanding the connections between community-based land management and disease outbreaks in Brazil.

Register now for Joseph Allen's Nov. 3 talk: "Healthy Buildings: The Nexus of COVID, Climate and Worker Health" As director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program, Joseph Allen often invites people to take their age and multiply it by 0.9.

Isabel Nerenberg, MS student in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS), is one of two recipients of this year’s Russell L. Castner Endowed Student Research Fund, which supports student research in environmental health.

DEOHS Assistant Professor Nicole Errett How do you plan ahead for the unforeseen?

Tiny pollution particles can cause major health problems. Our research shows how to minimize your risk.

In mid-October, UW PhD student Amber Khan took a hike up Mt. Si that was different from the treks she usually goes on with her husky.

For Washington’s K-12 students, having clean air is just as important as having a great teacher, according to a growing body of research on air pollution from traffic, wildfire smoke and other sources that can infiltrate schools and endanger health.

Professor Emeritus Howard Frumkin Dr.

Read the full report here

In a year like no other, DEOHS faculty, students and staff quickly pivoted to tackle new threats posed by the pandemic. We contributed to Washington state's COVID-19 response, showed the effectiveness of self-sampling for the virus and assessed impacts on essential workers—not to mention our furry friends.

 

  From flood-damaged Houston to fire-ravaged Paradise, CA, Nicole Errett’s research takes her into the heart of communities trying to recover after catastrophe strikes.

Helen Pineo is an urban planner and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on how development, regeneration and urban policy can support health and sustainability.

Dr. Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning and the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington, where she is also affiliated with the Data Science program. As a geographer, Dr. Chen finds great interest in the synergy of machine learning and satellite imagery analysis.

Ms Gagney has extensive experience in public environmental health practice, primarily focused on healthy housing and indoor air quality. Much of her career has been focused on education homeowners and students about the connections between inadequate building construction/maintenance and poor health outcomes.

Andrew L. Dannenberg, MD, MPH, is an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences and in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses on health and built environment and on health impact assessment.

Howard Frumkin is Senior Vice President with the Trust for Public Land and Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, where he served as Dean from 2010-2016. After serving as Dean, he led the “Our Planet, Our Health” initiative at the Wellcome Trust in London from 2018-2019.

Dr. Edmund Seto is Professor in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences. He received his PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the quantification of exposures and risk as they relate to environmental and occupational health.