UM-GHRT Focus on Environmental and Occupational Health:
Capacity Building, Regional Infrastructure Development and Research Training

For more than 10 years the University of Michigan School of Public Health has partnered with the NIH/Fogarty International Center (FIC) in a model program to foster an integrated effort to develop the occupational and environmental health infrastructure within the Southern African Development Community with a particular emphasis on improving research training and capacity. Faculty research programs include studies of the impact of economic development on health and the environment in South Africa and Mexico, studies of the impact of a range of heavy metals exposure on health in Africa and the Caribbean, and the epidemiology of inhaled toxins in South Africa.

Directed by Professor Thomas Robins, the FIC Research Training in Environmental and Occupational Health in Southern Africa provides financial and intellectual support for candidates from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to receive short-term focused training, advanced degrees, and research visits at the University of Michigan and partner institutions in Southern Africa. Several web-based learning programs have also been developed. The program is currently sponsoring studies on topics such as: the effects of air pollution on children’s respiratory health in highly industrialized South Durban, South Africa; dental workers’ health in South African dental schools; pesticide exposure of workers in commercial flower farms in Tanzania; copper miners’ health in Zambia; health and environmental impact on women and children of small-scale gold mining in Zimbabwe; occupational allergy and asthma among bakery workers in Cape Town, South Africa; and occupational and public safety in the public transportation industry in Tanzania. These studies are being conducted by indigenous academic and government researchers from Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Dr. Batterman directs a U.S.-sponsored Tertiary Education Linkage Program to develop strong and formal linkages between the University of Michigan and the Peninsula Technikon for the purposes of capacity building in the academic program, faculty development, promotion of student and faculty research, and industrial liaison.

At the School of Public Health, Professors Batterman and Harlow each direct a Fogarty International Center sponsored research program on Health, Environment and Economic Development (HEED).

In a project entitled Health, Pollution and Economic Development in South Durban, Dr. Stuart Batterman of the University of Michigan and Dr. Rajen Naidoo of the University of Natal are examining risk perceptions, values and decision-making surrounding individual and institutional health behaviors in the South Durban Industrial Basin, a residential-industrial complex that has one of the highest concentrations of industrial activity in Africa. Despite much attention from the community and the media, scientifically rigorous information regarding health and socio-economic impacts of pollution in south Durban is scarce: no comprehensive longitudinal health study has been conducted in the region, and no empirical data regarding the social, economic or quality-of-life morbidity and mortality resulting from environmental exposure and related diseases are available. Focusing on environmental health conditions, this project seeks to develop indicators associating health and environmental factors with socio-economic status, education, underlying value systems and other factors that affect decision making at the personal and institutional levels.

In a project entitled Mexico: Maquila, Environmental Vulnerability and Health, Drs. Sioban Harlow and Maria Carmen Lemos of the University of Michigan, Dr. Catalina Denman of Colegio de Sonora, and Dr. Francisco Lara of Arizona State University are using spatial analysis and ethnographic approaches to examine potential links between export-based industrialization, urbanization and infant health in Nogales and Hermosillo, Sonora, and to assess whether emerging disparities in infant and adult mortality are associated with deficits in urban and environmental infrastructure. The maquiladora export industries (MEI), concentrated along the US-Mexico border, are an important example of an export-led development model and important actors in the social and economic transformation of the border region. The accumulated deficit in urban and environmental infrastructure exacerbates local health inequalities and may well offset the health gains of economic growth.

Professor Howard Hu is Co-Director of the Michigan-Harvard/Harvard-Michigan Metals Epidemiologic Research Group (MERG) that applies multi-disciplinary and novel methods of exposure assessment, genetics, nutrition, psychological factors and clinical measurements in epidemiologic studies of human populations around the world to gain insights into the impacts of exposure to potentially toxic metals. MERG currently sponsors a 15 year old NIEHS-funded research program on lead exposure and reproductive toxicity in Mexico City in collaboration with the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico. Dr. Hu is also Principal Investigator of the NIH Fogarty FIRCA Study of Lead Exposure & Outcomes Amongst Children in Chennai, India, an on-going collaborative multi-institutional environmental health research and training project with the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute (SRMC) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The study aims to describe lead exposure and exposure-dose relationships of lead dose to neurobehavioral outcomes (and the modifying effect of genetic polymorphisms on those same relationships) in primary school children in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. In addition to research, Dr. Hu and colleagues have worked with SRMC to conduct lectures and workshop-based training of SRMC and regional clinical and public health professionals in basic environmental health; environmental epidemiology; basic clinical toxicology; and environmental biostatistics.

Professor Jerome Nriagu, conducts research on exposure assessment, risk characterization and management, and environmental epidemiology centered around the presence of toxic metals in Nigeria, Zambia, South Africa, Jamaica, Brazil, and Argentina with a particular focus on childhood lead poisoning in Africa, the Caribbean, and Detroit, Michigan. He has shown that childhood lead poisoning is a major public health problem in most urban areas of Africa where highly leaded gasoline remains the primary automobile fuel. Dr. Nriagu coordinates student research placements for the UM FIC-MHIRT program addressing these issues in Jamaica.

Professor Thomas Robins’ research addresses global issues in environmental and occupational health with particular emphasis on respiratory morbidity associated with workplace exposures (coal dust, aerosolized protein, metalworking fluids) and ambient air pollution. Robins and colleagues are currently investigating the respiratory health of students and teachers at a primary school located in Durban, South Africa between two major oil refineries and are conducting the first-ever epidemiologic study of the respiratory health of coal miners in South Africa. The effects of coal dust exposure on the respiratory tract are complex. They also have an ongoing investigation of occupational allergic conditions among seafood processing workers in the Western Cape of South Africa exposed to both crustaceans and bony fish. Other projects focus on reproductive toxicity including semen quality and fertility among workers employed in a South African lead acid battery plant and on the association between serum levels of several DDT metabolites and increased levels of both baseline and post-GnRH-challenge-changes of estradiol and testosterone in male malaria vector control workers spraying the inside of domiciles in the Northern Province of South Africa.