Congressman Chabot Visits UC Education and Research Center, Tours Labs

On Tuesday, May 3, Congressman Steve Chabot, who represents Ohio's 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives, visited with University of Cincinnati (UC) President Santa J. Ono and the team from the UC Education and Research Center (ERC) to learn more about research in environmental health, specifically in the areas of occupational health and safety.

Made up of faculty and students from the colleges of medicine, nursing and engineering, Rep. Chabot was introduced to ERC students and faculty, provided a research overview and given a laboratory tour.

The congressman was greeted by President Ono and Shuk-Mei Ho, PhD, Jacob G. Schmidlapp professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Kettering Laboratory, who gave an overview of the research from both the ERC and in environmental health.

"This is just one part of a constellation of researchers and educational opportunities at the University of Cincinnati," said Ono. "It really makes this city, this region and Uptown a mecca for environmental health and environmental sciences research, in addition to housing one of the oldest programs in the country."

Ho highlighted the faculty expertise across many occupational and environmental health issues both nationally and globally—from bird flu to lead to mining and manufacturing—in addition to their partnerships with the nearby Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which provides the funding for the ERC.

Rep. Chabot was then given a tour and hands-on overview of the work the ERC does in research and training.

In the ergonomics laboratory, trainees Noma Agbonifo and Bingbing Wu demonstrated efforts underway to improve the occupational safety for nurses changing hospital beds and for firefighters who encounter extreme heat.

Chabot was also shown the aerosol chamber lab with Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, professor of environmental and industrial hygiene, where air particulates are tested against respiratory protection.

Deputy Director of the ERC Amit Bhattacharya, PhD, said, "The UC ERC has trained hundreds of professionals and continues to train people in the field. Funded by NIOSH for over 38 years, our ERC is the longest-running continually-funded graduate training program; such funding is essential for creating exceptional graduates who will go on to become leaders in these fields."

The ERC is an interdisciplinary educational program for training graduate students in environmental and occupational hygiene, occupational health nursing, occupational medical residency, occupational safety and health engineering and biomonitoring. The goals are to generate new knowledge in occupational exposure science and to change practices to reduce injuries and illnesses associated with the workplace.

Since 1977, the ERC has been continually funded by NIOSH, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.