Who is paying the price for the world’s changing environment? Many research studies are finding that it is marginalized communities – including those with large minority populations or low socioeconomic power – that are experiencing the most serious health impacts from air pollution, water contamination and climate change. In this panel, we will discuss several research projects that are examining environmental change through an equity lens, exploring cases where environmental contamination may be driving health disparities in marginalized populations in the U.S. and other countries. Panelists will consider how research and policy can shape and inform efforts to pursue environmental justice and health equity for these vulnerable and disproportionately exposed communities.

SPEAKERS

Mercedes Bravo, PhD (moderator) is an Assistant Research Professor of Global Health and Associate Director for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Duke Global Health Institute. Dr. Bravo received her PhD from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Bravo’s research focuses on identifying and characterizing relationships between social and environmental exposures and disparities in health and developmental outcomes. She is particularly interested in promoting health equity through better characterization of disparities in exposures and disparities in health outcomes, especially for underserved, underrepresented, and potentially vulnerable populations. In her role as DGHI's associate director for equity, inclusion and diversity, Dr. Bravo advises DGHI senior leadership on strategies to advance EID across the institute and serves as co-lead of the DGHI Equity Implementation Team, which oversees evaluation and implementation of recommendations from the 2021 DGHI Equity Task Force report.

Nishad Jayasundara, PhD is the Juli Plant Grainger Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health at the Nicholas School of the Environment with secondary appointments at the Duke Global Health Institute and School of Medicine. Jayasundara’s research focuses on shedding new light on the adverse ecological and human health impacts of chemical pollution and climate change. Known for his innovative studies using fish species as sentinels to measure the biochemical and physiological consequences of exposure to chemical and physical stressors, he recently has been working with an interdisciplinary team of environmental and health researchers to unravel how climate change and water contamination may be driving a rise in kidney disease among rice farmers in Sri Lanka. He is also principal investigator of a new study on lithium contamination, an emerging public health concern linked to the increased mining, use and disposal of lithium for the manufacture of clean energy technologies such as electric car batteries and solar panels.

Kay Jowers, PhD is the Director for Just Environments at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability and the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Her work centers on fostering partnerships among scholars, students, and community co-researchers to uncover the underlying causes of environmental and climate injustices while challenging ingrained assumptions that perpetuate these disparities. These collaborations prioritize research and policy solutions that address both conventional environmental issues and the creation of sustainable communities with equitable access to housing, food, green spaces, utilities, and more. As part of Just Environments, Kay directs the Environmental Justice Lab, where students, faculty, and community partners employ computational social science methods to analyze environmental inequality and evaluate the effectiveness of proposed policy solutions. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a JD from Tulane University Law School, and an MSPH in environmental health sciences from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Cavin Ward-Caviness, PhD is a Senior Scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency where he uses data science to answer previously intractable questions on how the environment (both social and chemical) impacts health and wellness. Equally important is the work he’s doing with local organizations and communities to communicate environmental risks in a way that leads to actionable solutions that reduce disease burden, save lives, and improve health and wellness. Dr Ward-Caviness is the creator and lead of EPA CARES - a novel research resource that combines millions of electronic health records with environmental data and is the foundational resource for a wide array a scientific studies. He also leads the Environmental Health domain team for the National COVID Cohort Collaborative to investigate the role of the environment in the COVID19 pandemic. Additionally, he is a leader in the aging field, and is exploring how aging biomarkers can encode past environmental exposures and experiences and manifest those as increased health risks in the present and future.

This is a hybrid event with both in-person and remote attendance options. Attendance in person is encouraged. Lunch will be available.