Division of Environmental Health

Overview

The Division of Environmental Health in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences works to understand the associations, connections, and impacts of environmental exposures on human health. The division devotes resources to constituent characterization (measuring and monitoring what we may be exposed to) and translational research (how to effectively communicate and apply the scientific information gathered by us and others). Our mission is to study environmental contaminants and use that information to educate the public and improve public health policies. The division also trains environmental health researchers to address the pressing environmental problems of our times and the emerging threats of the future.

I have been at USC since 1997 when I started developing novel geospatial and dosimeter-based methods for assessing lifetime and age-specific UV exposure, later expanding into the application of geospatial methods to environmental risk assessment for cancers and chronic diseases, particularly the role of pesticide exposure in hormone-related cancers, Parkinson’s Disease and autism. My melanoma prevention work includes school-based programs teaching children about UV exposure and skin cancer risk, and randomized trials of environmentally-focused science education interventions. My work in population-based cancer control focuses on mapping populations at risk due to individual, neighborhood or environmental characteristics, and developing area-based interventions to increase the impact of disparities-focused research.

Myles Gordon Cockburn, PhD
Division Chief
Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences
Email: mylesc@usc.edu
Phone: (323)865-0322

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