NIEHS’ mission is to research how the environment affects biological systems across the lifespan and to translate this knowledge to reduce disease and promote human health..
NIEHS seeks to comprehensively understand the role of environmental factors in human health and disease. In addition to analyzing chemicals in the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the things you touch, environmental health research considers what happens inside your body as chemicals are processed. Environmental factors can be external to your body such as sunlight, mold, and pollutants, or internal such as diet choices, metabolism, and stress. This research covers all lifespan periods.
As we learn more about how factors in the environment affect health, we enhance our ability to create a healthier environment and prevent disease and disability.
The topics below explain areas of study, research approaches, and biological processes that are integral to environmental health sciences.
Alternatives to Animal Testing
Improved technological capabilities enable scientists to reduce their reliance on animal models for specific types of studies. Learn about recent advances in alternative methods, such as computational, biochemical, or cell-based model systems.
A biomarker (short for biological marker) is an objective measure that captures what is happening in a cell or an organism at a given moment. Biomarkers help us understand relationships between environmental chemicals and human diseases to improve our ability to diagnose, monitor, or predict disease risk.
In our environment, we are exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals every day and throughout our lifetimes. These chemical mixtures may have greater effects on our health than each chemical would alone. Therefore, scientists are now studying how these mixtures interact in cells, animals, and humans to identify health effects.
For decades, scientists have known the basic structure of our DNA, the building blocks that make up our genes. Epigenetics is a rapidly growing area of science that focuses on the processes that help direct when individual genes are turned on or off.
Exposure science is the study of our contact, such as by swallowing, breathing, or touching, with environmental factors and their effects on the human body. Research in this field aims to determine the types, levels, and combinations of exposures people experience and how those exposures affect human health and disease over a lifetime.
Gene and Environment Interaction
Few diseases result from a change in a single gene or even multiple genes. Instead, most diseases are complex and stem from an interaction between your genes and your environment.
The microbiome is the collection of all microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and their genes, that naturally live on our bodies and inside us. Although microbes require a microscope to see them, they contribute to human health and wellness in many ways.
Toxicology is a field of science that helps us understand the harmful effects that chemicals, substances, or situations, can have on people, animals, and the environment. Some refer to toxicology as the “Science of Safety” because as a field it has evolved from a science focused on studying poisons and adverse effects of chemical exposures, to a science devoted to studying safety.