Research Interests

In late 2006, the Geisinger Center for Health Research and the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore developed the joint Environmental Health Institute (EHI). The EHI’s research mission is to evaluate how environmental and community conditions may be influencing the health of residents in Geisinger’s 40+ counties in central and northeastern Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a number of environmental challenges of relevance to health, including abandoned coal mine lands, unconventional natural gas development in the Marcellus shale (including “fracking”), large animal feeding operations that use antibiotics in animal feeds and may expose local residents to antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant organisms as animal wastes are applied to crop fields, and community built environments that may constrain optimal physical activity or nutritional behaviors. These environmental challenges could influence health in a number of ways, including through air pollution, water contamination, social disruption, community stress, and inhibition of health-promoting behaviors. In the EHI’s research, we are evaluating how these and other environmental and community conditions may be impacting such health outcomes as type 2 diabetes, asthma, heart disease, childhood weight patterns, chronic rhinosinusitis, and pregnancy outcomes. The EHI welcomes research collaborations and more information about how to develop these collaborations is available upon request.

• Abandoned Mine Sites
• Environmental Health Institute Overview