Institute for Human Health and the Environment

The environment we live in plays a huge role in our health: quality of life and longevity are more closely tied to zip code than genetic code. At the University of Rochester’s Institute for Human Health and the Environment (IHHE), we believe that solutions to the 21st century’s most pressing health issues require collaborative, creative, and sustained commitment to research, education, and engagement to understand how the environment influences health across the lifespan.

The IHHE integrates programs and expertise across the University of Rochester, fostering new collaborations and approaches to create effective solutions to major issues that are at the intersection of environmental factors and human health. Key areas of transdisciplinary research will be related to:

  • Climate change and health
  • Environmental justice
  • What’s in our water and air and how it impacts our health
  • How environmental factors shape health across our whole lifetime