Spring 2020 Seminar Schedule.

Announcement:

In light of the challenges posed by COVID-19, we have decided to cancel our EH seminar series for the remainder of the semester. We plan to complete the seminar series on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Fall 2020.

Join us every Friday (during the semester) from 12:45-1:45 pm in BUSM (L-112, BU Medical School) unless otherwise indicated. 

EH Seminar Series: Policy Formulation Advanced by Science: The Ongoing Case of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Spring 2020

Time:  Fridays 12:45 – 1:45

Location: Room 112, BU Medical School Instructional Building

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that are celebrated for their grease- and water-repellent properties. Sources of exposure to PFAS include food, drinking water, air, and commercial household products, and their tendency to persist in the environment and in the human body has secured PFASs the alias of “forever chemicals”. The negative health and environmental effects of these chemicals and their presence in nearly all people worldwide have placed PFAS at the center of intense investigation and regulatory concern. Despite ubiquitous exposure, PFAS are not regulated in the United States. However, after mounting scientific and public pressure, manufacturers voluntarily phased out the production of two of theses chemicals, PFOS (2002) and PFOA (2015), but replacements and precursors still comprise a class of least 4,700 PFAS chemicals in commerce – most with no toxicological data. Scientists, communities, non-governmental organizations, industry and policy/decision-makers play key roles in this high stakes situation. This seminar series explores the interactions of these players through: summarizing the state of the science on PFAS; examining communities’ concerns, challenges, and successes in addressing PFAS contamination; and assessing current policies targeting PFAS at federal, state, and local levels. Using PFAS as a timely example, the series illustrates nuances to the relationships between scientists, community members, and regulators who are interested in understanding and preventing hazardous exposures.

January 24

Speaker: Dan Nguyen

PhD Candidate

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s…Definitely a Plane: Investigations of Noise as a Health Hazard

and

Speaker: Komal Peer

PhD Candidates

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: From Clinical Electronic Health Record (EHR) Data to Research Ready Data – Creating an Asthma Severity Phenotype

January 31

Speakers: Leila Heidari and Jeff Carlson

PhD Candidates

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: Policy Formulation Advanced by Science: The Ongoing Case of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Introduction to the Spring Semester of the Series

Summary: This seminar will provide background to the spring semester of the PFAS seminar series that focuses on community, regulatory, and policy perspectives on PFAS.

February 7th

Speaker: Thomas Webster, DSc

Professor

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: What Do We Do about the Other 4700+ PFAS? Novel Approaches to Regulation.

Bio: Tom Webster has several main research areas: 1) exposure routes and health hazards of chemicals used in consumer products, especially flame retardants, plasticizers and emerging compounds, as well as perfluoralkyl compounds (PFCs) that are also found in water; 2) health impacts of exposure to mixtures of chemicals, with applications in toxicology and epidemiology; 3) endocrine disruption; 4) methodological aspects of environmental epidemiology, particularly causal inference, ecologic bias, the use of combinations of individual and group level data, and disease mapping and clusters. Like the rest of my department, I am very interested in the community context of environmental health. Dr. Webster served on the National Research Council’s Subcommittee on Fluoride in Drinking Water and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Making Best Use of the Agent Orange Exposure Reconstruction Model. The work of Dr. Webster and his colleagues and students has been featured in Environmental Health Perspectives (“PFCs and Cholesterol: A Sticky Connection,” “Unwelcome Guest: PBDEs in Indoor Dust”), Bostonia Magazine (“Trouble at Home,” “You Are What You Eat, Including Your Sofa”), Discovery News (“Handwashing Cuts Flame Retardant Exposure”) and the National Public Radio show “Living on Earth,” among other places.

February 14th

Speaker: David Savitz, PhD

Professor

Epidemiology, Obstectrics & Gynecology, and Pediatrics

Brown University School of Public Health and Alpert School of Medicine

Title: Bringing Epidemiologic Evidence into Legal and Public Health Decisions:  Applications of Research on PFAS

Summary: The connection between epidemiologic research, which is rarely if ever definitive, and the application of what is known to decisions is complex.  Dr. Savitz will describe two case studies that pertain to health effects of PFAS, one on the C8 Science Panel research and judgment on potential health effects of PFOA in the Mid-Ohio Valley and the other in support of actions by the State of Michigan in response to identifying PFAS-contaminated water supplies.  Key points include focusing on the question that the users of the information are asking and effectively explaining degrees of suggestiveness and uncertainty.  

Bio: David A. Savitz is Professor of Epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health, with joint appointments in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics in the Alpert Medical School. His epidemiological research has addressed a wide range of many important public health issues including environmental hazards in the workplace and community, reproductive health outcomes, and environmental influences on cancer.  He has done extensive work on health effects of nonionizing radiation, pesticides, drinking water treatment by-products, and perfluorinated compounds.

He has directed 30 doctoral dissertations and 15 master’s theses. He is the author of nearly 350 papers in professional journals and editor or author of three books. He has served as editor at the American Journal of Epidemiology and Epidemiology and as a member of the Epidemiology and Disease Control-1 study section of the National Institutes of Health. He was President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research and North American Regional Councilor for the International Epidemiological Association. Dr. Savitz is an elected member of the National Academy Medicine.  From 2013-2017 he served as Vice President for Research at Brown University and he currently serves as Associate Dean for Research in the School of Public Health.

He came to Brown in 2010 from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he had served as the Charles W. Bluhdorn Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine and Director of Disease Prevention and Public Health Institute since 2006. Earlier, he taught and conducted research at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health and at the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  Dr. Savitz received his undergraduate training in Psychology at Brandeis University, a Master’s degree in Preventive Medicine at Ohio State University in 1978, and the PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in 1982.

February 21st

Speaker: Mark Smith PhD, MS

Director

Office of Research and Standards

Chair, Quicksilver Caucus

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

Title: Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Efforts to Address PFAS in Drinking Water and Other Media

Summary: Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) efforts on PFAS have focused on six longer-chain PFAS compounds including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA) and perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA). This subgroup was selected based on similarities in structure, comparative assessment of available toxicity data, their inclusion in EPA Method 537.1 for drinking water, and long-serum half-lives. This presentation will summarize the status of MassDEP efforts; why we are focusing on the subgroup of six compounds; and the basis of our proposed drinking water standard of 20 parts per trillion for these compounds.

Bio: Dr. C. Mark Smith is the Deputy Director of the Office of Research and Standards (ORS) at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) where he has lead a number of the Department’s efforts to address priority air, water, solid waste and multimedia pollutants. He earned a Ph.D. in the field of Molecular and Cellular Toxicology from Harvard University and a Masters degree in Environmental Management from the Harvard School of Public Health and has published in the areas of environmental policy, molecular toxicology and risk assessment. He has played key roles in the establishment of the first state drinking water standard for perchlorate and in developing and implementing the NEG-ECP Regional Mercury Action Plan and the MA Zero Mercury Strategy. He also Chairs the Environmental Council of States Quicksilver Caucus.

February 28th

Speaker: Noelle Eckley Selin

Associate Professor

Institute for Data, Systems and Society and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Director

MIT Technology and Policy Program

Title: Global Transport and Fate of PFAS: Linking Modeling and International Policy 

Summary: Dr. Selin will present recent work modeling the atmospheric production of PFAS. She will discuss some of the history of the Stockholm Convention, summarize the process by which new chemicals are added to the Convention and how it was developed, and discuss the more recent case of PFASs in that context.  Lastly, she will examine how modeling and analysis can inform international regulations.

Bio: Noelle is Associate Professor in the Institute for Data, Systems and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and Director of MIT’s Technology and Policy Program. Her research uses modeling and analysis to inform sustainability decision-making, focusing on issues involving air pollution, climate change and hazardous substances such as mercury. She received her PhD and M.A. (Earth and Planetary Sciences) and B.A. (Environmental Science and Public Policy) from Harvard University. Her work has focused on atmospheric chemistry, air pollution, as well as interactions between science and policy in international environmental negotiations. She is the recipient of a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER award (2011), a Leopold Leadership fellow (2013-2014), Kavli fellow (2015), a member of the Global Young Academy (2014-2018), an American Association for the Advancement of Science Leshner Leadership Institute Fellow (2016-2017), and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at the Technical University of Munich Institute for Advanced Study (2018-2021).

March 6th

Speaker: Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD, MPH

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: Air Pollution, Lung Function, and Perceptions of Air Pollution Exposure in a Low-Income Cohort in Mysore, India

Increasingly high air pollution levels in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may be contributing to worsening respiratory health. In the course of a 5-year longitudinal study, the influence of annual average ambient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) at the home location on lung function decline was investigated in a cohort of low-income adults in Mysore, Karnataka, India. We also assessed perception of air pollution exposure and health outcomes in the cohort, as well as self-efficacy.

and

Darren Sun, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Department of Environmental Health

BUSPH

Title: Moderate and Extreme Heat and Emergency Department Visits to US Children’s Hospitals

Ambient heat is a recognized public health problem associated with significant morbidity and mortality. However, little is known about the impact of heat on children and adolescents. In this talk, Darren will share preliminary results from a study of the association of ambient heat with all-cause and cause-specifc emergency department visits across a network of US children’s hospitals.

SEMINAR CANCELLED FOR REMAINDER OF SEMESTER