100 Years of Public Health Action

Celebrating 100 Years at the

Mailman School of Public Health

Dear Friends,

We proudly celebrate 100 years of public health service at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Columbia's Center for Children's Environmental Health continues to forge forward with cutting-edge research, education, community outreach and engagement.

The Center is dedicated to creating a world in which every child has a healthy start and you have all been part of this history.

Thank you all for your ongoing support and collaboration in protecting the health and wellbeing of children and families!

A Century of Impact

September 9, 2021

The world may have awakened to the power of public health research and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health has been a champion of public health—and the public good—since it helped create the discipline in 1922.

Today, the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health is a global leader in education and practice, with faculty and staff working in more than 100 countries.

So it might be hard to envision our humble beginnings on West 59th Street a century ago. An institution that began in a single room, with a single student, now has 16,000 alumni with state-of-the-art training working worldwide to build a healthier and more just society. READ MORE

Transportation Climate Initiative Meeting

This September, in a meeting hosted by WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Dr. Frederica Perera and her colleagues at CCCEH, Harvard C-CHANGE, and Emory University presented their analysis of the potential health benefits to children in NYC from on-road air pollution reductions under the regional Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). The preliminary results were presented to environmental justice groups and transportation policy representatives from New York and around the country. The presentation highlighted the increase in health benefits with more ambitious greenhouse gas caps and more investment in public transit. Attendees were interested in future work diving deeper into the benefits of specific transportation policies, as well as the local benefits of TCI in other urban areas across the region.

Tree by Tree, a Community Works to Reverse Its Racist Housing Legacy

Dr. Casey spoke with Mother Jones in an article detailing how certain neighborhoods have been long passed over for green improvements due to segregationist policies. Dr. Casey co-authored a study underscoring how the policy continues to shape the landscapes of US cities.

EHS Spotlight: Asthma and Allergen Research Group

Led by Matt Perzanowski, the Asthma and Allergen Research Group works to understand the causes of asthma development and exacerbations that resulted in the stark disparities in asthma prevalence and morbidity seen in lower-income neighborhoods in NYC. READ MORE

Study on COVID-19 Vaccinations in Largest U.S. Cities Finds Stark Inequities September 9, 2021

In a study of the nine largest U.S. cities, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found stark racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities in COVID-19 vaccination rates across neighborhoods. The study showed that high vaccination neighborhoods had more white residents, fewer people of color, higher incomes, and lower poverty rates. These high vaccination neighborhoods also had lower historical COVID-19 death rates, showing that lifesaving vaccines have been slow to reach the areas that were hardest-hit by the pandemic. The findings are published online in JAMA Health Forum. READ MORE