Community Projects and Partnerships
Community Projects and Partnerships
The CEC engages in projects and partnerships addressing varied environmental health issues.
Current CEC work focuses on five key priority issues: lead, healthy homes, the build environment, outdoor air pollution, and emerging environmental contaminants. Visit the pages below to learn more about our work in each of these areas.
Additional projects and partnerships, found at the bottom of this page, include environmental health science education, occupational health, and environmental health information for clinicians.
For past CEC projects, please visit our projects archive.
Additional Partnerships
Community Environmental Health Education
The CEC develops, supports and conducts a wide range of activities to enhance the environmental health literacy of diverse audiences. We partnered with Science Take-Out, a science education company, and three other community engagement programs to develop eight interactive community environmental health (CEH) kits. The CEC also provides ongoing opportunities to interact with area educators and students through the Life Sciences Learning Center.
Learn more and view the CEH kits.
Community Environmental Health Priorities
In 2024, the University of Rochester Environmental Health Sciences Center and Institute for Human Health and the Environment surveyed our Community Advisory Board (CAB) to identify key priority community environmental health issues in the City of Rochester and the Finger Lakes Region.
Learn more and read the report.
Diacetyl and Lung Health
Diacetyl is a buttery-smelling chemical that was formerly used to flavor microwave popcorn and is naturally produced by roasting and grinding coffee beans. Previous studies of people who inhaled high amounts of diacetyl showed that the chemical can cause severe lung disease, particularly obliterative bronchiolitis. New research by Center member Dr. Matt McGraw suggests that exposure to diacetyl in combination with flu infection can cause greater health problems. Working with Dr. McGraw, the Community Engagement Core, and staff from the Finger Lakes Occupational Health Services clinic, University of Rochester student Sophia Samantaroy created a research summary and infographic to communicate the potential occupational health risks of diacetyl exposures for industrial coffee roasters.
Prescriptions (Rx) for Prevention
CEC director Katrina Smith Korfmacher, PhD, was part of a team that developed materials aimed at integrating environmental health into routine pediatric clinical care. The group worked together to create, refine, and disseminate a clinical tool called Prescriptions (Rx) for Prevention to help clinicians when they screen their patients for environmental health concerns, counsel on those topics, and refer to environmental health resources. According to an article recently published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, “Rx for Prevention —tailored with local resources—are now in use at more than a dozen sites in multiple regions of the U.S. supporting the promotion of healthy homes, communities, and the broader environment for children.”
Over 45 Rx for Prevention are available.