The research tool of spatial-data analysis is key to discovering and addressing environmental risks to children's health, Marie Lynn Miranda said Monday in giving the 11th Annual Wege Lecture on Sustainability.Miranda, the new dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, said such tools give both scientists and policy makers the ability to see obscure but possibly meaningful connections between a child's environment and his or her health. (VIEW VIDEO). The lecture drew on Miranda's more than 20 years of research on the topic, and specifically her published work about lead contamination among children.
Improving health outcomes and quality of life for people living with type 2 diabetes are the goals of a project between a new research center at the University of Michigan and university, health and public officials in North Carolina. The Center for Geospatial Medicine, which recently moved from Duke University to U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, is a partner in a $6.2 million grant announced today by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation as part of its national diabetes initiative, Together on Diabetes. The project's other partners are the Duke University Medical Center and the Durham County Health Department. The project will focus on residents of North Carolina's Durham County, home to Duke.
Air pollution from industrial sources near Michigan public schools jeopardizes children's health and academic success, according to a new study from University of Michigan researchers. The researchers found that schools located in areas with the state's highest industrial air pollution levels had the lowest attendance rates—an indicator of poor health—as well as the highest proportions of students who failed to meet state educational testing standards. The researchers examined the distribution of all 3,660 public elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in the state and found that 62.5 percent of them were located in places with high levels of air pollution from industrial sources.