Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers

Scientific collaboration and cutting-edge technologies can advance environmental health sciences. The NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Core Centers Program facilitates these collaborations by funding institutional infrastructure to support scientific equipment, facilities, and other resources that can be shared among environmental health researchers. By pursuing shared research questions, the EHS Core Centers identify emerging issues that advance understanding about how pollutants and other environmental factors affect human biology and may lead to disease.

Currently, there are more than 20 centers across the country. Each center has its own strategic vision and scientific focus, but all share four common goals: advancing scientific research; promoting community engagement; advancing translational research; and training new researchers.

About Core Centers

About the EHS Core Centers Program

The EHS Core Centers Program brings together researchers to tackle related environmental health questions.

Community Engagement Cores

Community Engagement Cores translate and disseminate Center research results into information community members, decision makers, and public health professionals can use to protect and improve public health.

Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers Grantees

There are more than 20 EHS Core Centers around the country, many of which have a long history of NIEHS support.

Center Spotlight

Green Space May Lead to Less Depressed Teens

Adolescents living in areas surrounded by trees and other green vegetation have better mental health than those exposed to less greenery at home, according to new research supported in part by the EHS Core Center at Harvard University. The study is one of the first to examine the relationship between natural environments and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

Researchers Study GenX Exposure in North Carolina Residents

Researchers from North Carolina State University’s Center for Human Health and the Environment are leading a collaborative project to study GenX exposure among residents of New Hanover County, North Carolina. The community-based project will test blood, urine, and drinking water samples from 400 participants for GenX and related chemicals.

Air Pollution Linked to Irregular Menstrual Cycles

Air pollution may cause teenage girls to have irregular menstrual cycles, according to a study funded in part through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for EHS pilot project program. The study is the first to show that exposure to air pollution among teen girls is associated with slightly increased chances of menstrual irregularity and longer time to achieve such regularity in high school and early adulthood.

Heidi Hsieh Receives Early Career Professional Award from the American College of Toxicology

Heidi Hsieh, Ph.D., a former doctoral student in the Center for Environmental Genetics (CEG) at the University of Cincinnati (UC), was honored with the 2017 Early Career Professional Award from the American College of Toxicology. While at UC, Hsieh worked with CEG member Mary Beth Genter, Ph.D., to examine the mechanism of zinc toxicity in olfactory neurons. She is now a study director at Covance Laboratories, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin.

Prenatal Exposure to Flame Retardants Alters Serotonin Production in Rats by Disrupting Placental Function

Research from North Carolina State University’s Center for Human Health and the Environment suggests that prenatal exposure to flame retardant chemicals commonly used in furniture and baby products may hinder healthy brain development. The researchers found that the flame retardant chemical disrupts normal placental function in rats, leading to altered production of the neurotransmitter serotonin.