Environment & Public Health

A rapidly changing environment brings new health challenges, and UArizona faculty address these issues through interdisciplinary projects, ranging from managing public health crises, to water and food contamination, to the connections between health and climate change.

Our research

Op-ed: How the Pandemic Made it Harder For Immigrants to Access Food

From avoiding public benefits like food assistance programs, to facing overwhelmed private programs, many immigrants faced increased food insecurity during the pandemic. 

Pima County wastewater shows COVID-19 variants

Wastewater epidemiology is an integral part of tracking the prevalence of COVID-19 in Pima County and the University of Arizona campus.

Between anger and sadness: How the climate crisis has become a mental health crisis

What Phoenix Heberling remembers most about the tornado is the screaming. She was 2, living in a trailer park in rural Indiana, and her father and some friends were having a party when he got a phone call.

What our wastewater can tell us

Our sewage contains important biomarkers that can tell researchers about a community's diet, drug intake, and even the presence of COVID-19.

University of Arizona gathers data on COVID-19 pandemic effect on tomatoes

A clear consumer retail preference for vine-ripened tomatoes after the March 2020 COVID lockdown is one finding of a study by the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics at the University of Arizona.

Four Steps to Manage Restaurant Waste

Waste management is one of the challenges affecting the restaurant industry.  Research from the University of Arizona shows that fast-food restaurants waste 9.55 percent, while full-service restaurants waste 11.3 percent on average.

How Wastewater Testing Serves as An Early Warning System For COVID-19 Infection Spikes

Yuma County is among the worst-hit communities by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Wastewater epidemiology used to stave off lettuce shortage

The University of Arizona is leading the charge in studying wastewater for potential diseases, including COVID-19. Now, the work of epidemiologists could help save the nation from a leafy-green shortage, starting right here in Arizona.

Testing for SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater

The University of Arizona began monitoring campus wastewater for evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in March of 2020. That August, a sample from one of their 20 on-campus dorms revealed a viral load—an indication that individuals living in that residence might be infected.1 The school tested each of the 311 residents in that dorm and found two positive cases—neither was yet exhibiting symptoms, suggesting they could have passed the virus silently throughout the student population had they not been found in time. Instead, they were isolated before they could infect others, and the school averted a wider outbreak.