The Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Specialty Track focuses on exposures from air, water, food, work, and the built environment that affect the health of individuals and communities. Students in this Track will also explore global environmental issues like climate change, emerging pollutants of concern, and can participate in cutting-edge research on chemical exposures and fetal origins of adult diseases.
The coursework and hands-on experiences in EHS are interdisciplinary and consider the broader context of environmental exposures and their contribution to health disparities on a local, national, and global scale. Students will gain a core skill set that will prepare them to become leaders in this important and growing field of public health.
Students will also have the opportunity to work with nationally-regarded researchers, clinicians, public health professionals, and community partners in the fields of environmental health and occupational medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and its partners, including:
- The Institute for Exposomic Research
- Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU)
- Children’s Environmental Health Center
- Transdisciplinary Center on Health Effects of Early Environmental Exposures (TCEEE)
- World Trade Center Health Program
- Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health
- New York and New Jersey Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center (NYNJ ERC)
- ISMMS Occupational Medicine Residency Program
- NYC-based community organizations that work in environmental health or environmental justice
Track-specific Requirements
Throughout your coursework and practical experiences, you will learn applicable principles of toxicology, environmental epidemiology, exposure and risk assessment, and strategies to prevent disease, as well as fundamentals of laws and regulation that address environmental and occupational hazards. You will also learn to recognize, address, and prevent common environmental and occupational health threats such as heavy metals, asthma triggers, pesticides, and solvents. In this track, you will complete an applied practicum experience (APE), and for a culminating experience you can complete either a master’s thesis, manuscript, or capstone project.
- Recent culminating experiences include: examination of health impacts from dust exposure from the World Trade Center collapse, assessing the impacts of prenatal lead exposure from contaminated soil at battery recycling sites in Indonesia, and evaluation of environmental health outreach for diverse audiences.
- Recent APEs include: internship at the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU), participation in environmental outreach projects with community organizations, and a survey of pregnant women about Zika virus prevention.
Environmental Health Sciences Track Checklist
Track-specific Competencies
To ensure our students develop the skills necessary to be successful and productive in the field of public health, and especially in the area of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH), we have developed a list of skills and content areas for the students in this Track:
- Ability to assess environmental and occupational exposures.
- The prevention and control of environmental and occupational hazards.
- Identification of the adverse effects of chemical, biological, and physical exposures on human health.
- Interpretation of epidemiologic and other research findings related to environmental risks, and the ability to participate in designing and conducting research.
- Ability to synthesize relevant information in order to assess and manage occupational risks, to participate in policy development, and to analyze EOH policy implications.
- Engagement in public health messaging and risk communication activities with a focus on the environment and health.