About the Center
The mission of the Center for Environmental Health and Justice in Northern Manhattan (CEHJNM) is to identify and understand diseases resulting from environmental exposures with a special focus on translating scientific evidence into prevention. Our vision is to continue to be the premier intellectual hub and operational infrastructure for environmental health across Columbia University's Departments and Schools, the communities we serve, as well as partners, collaborators, agencies and stakeholders in the U.S. and globally. CEHJNM's overarching goal is to foster innovation and interdisciplinary science, career development, and community partnerships.
CEHJNM brings together researchers and physician scientists from 14 different departments across Columbia University. Members concentrate their research in four thematic areas:
- Environmental Epidemiology
- Molecular Mechanisms
- Climate and Health
- Intervention and Disease Prevention
While interconnected, these themes have a distinctive identity that cuts across exposures and diseases. Center researchers tend to concentrate their research interest in three areas: cancer, respiratory illnesses, and neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
The research of the CEHNM members is supported by three facility cores:
- Translational Research Support Core
- Study Design and Data Science Facility Core
Together, the two facility cores form an effective pipeline of science to support members with a wide array of study design, exposure assessment, wet-lab, and data services throughout all the stages of their investigations. These include basic laboratory and animal model research, as well as human population studies.
A unique feature of the CEHJNM's work is its twofold translational nature: first, CEHJNMS's observational and mechanistic studies have uniquely stimulated interventions; second, our local/global focus enables us to study exposures, effects, and possible solutions both here in New York and in many other locations around the world. As a result, we lead an especially large number of remediation studies and intervention trials that effectively translate our research into improved environmental health.