We at the Center for Children's Environmental Health would like to wish you all Happy Healthy Holidays and express our gratitude for your ongoing support.
Encouraged by the success the COVID-19 vaccine has had this year, we have begun to cautiously reclaim our pre-pandemic lives. We are grateful for the privilege and security the vaccine has provided.
Enthusiastic about the new year, we will continue the important work to protect children's environmental health through research, education and to inform local and national environmental health and justice policy.
We are proud to share a summary of the Center's accomplishments this year and want to express our gratitude to our study participants and all our partners for your role in these efforts.
COTC conducted a Community EHJ Needs Assessment in collaboration with our Community Advisory and Stakeholder Board, CASB, and the CCCEH EHJ Advocates.
CCCEH EHJ Advocates participated in Earth Day, developed a Green Recipe Book, (Recetas Verdes), participated in the planning and implementation of the "Moving Forward to Beauty Justice" Conference, College Prep, and weekly youth advisory council meetings. To join the EHJ Advocates contact: Anabel Cole: 646.883.0322; ac3580@cumc.columbia.edu
The Center for Children's Environmental Health is proud to share that in late October, the Biden Administration announced regulations to limit exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), long-lasting chemical compounds found in our drinking water, food, even our blood.
The regulations are based on a growing body of research on their harms to human health—including studies and standards published by environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
“Our research added to evidence showing that PFAS are ubiquitous and unavoidable, and present real risks to the health of children,” says Herbstman, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman.
Childhood immunizations are one of the success stories of modern medicine. Smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in 1977. Polio was officially eliminated from the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere in 1991. (Source: Healthy Children.org History of Immunizations). For personal stories, ask an octogenarian who may recall the miracle of the polio vaccine and the decline of infant mortality and morbidity as childhood vaccination campaigns saved lives in their communities in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The science, historical record, our public health and epidemiological training gives us the confidence to encourage parents to vaccinate their children, ages 5-11, with the COVID-19 vaccine.
