Asthma and Environmental Justice in the Salton Sea with Shohreh Farzan, PhD and Connie Valencia, MPH, CHES, PhD

Shohreh Farzan, PhD is an environmental epidemiologist, with a background in molecular biology and toxicology. Farzan’s research focuses on the impact of environmental contaminants on maternal-child health, with a special interest in cardiometabolic health. Much of Farzan’s work focuses on the role of environmental exposures in altering preclinical indicators of cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk, particularly during vulnerable lifestages, such as childhood and pregnancy. Within the Maternal and Developmental Risks of Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) study, a NIMHD-funded Center of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research, she focuses on the role of prenatal air pollutants and psychosocial stressors on maternal postpartum cardiometabolic health. Farzan also leads multiple studies of the impacts of toxic metals and air pollutants on preclinical biomarkers of cardiovascular dysfunction in children and adolescents, both as PI of a NIEHS R01 to investigate the role of air pollutants in the development of atherosclerosis in the transition from childhood to young adulthood and as MPI of the ECHO LA DREAMERs study. She is also MPI of a NIEHS Research to Action R01 that established the Children’s AIRE cohort to investigate environmental contributors to children’s respiratory health in a rural border region of California to inform community-engaged public health actions and the recipient of a NIEHS K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.

Connie Valencia, MPH, CHES, PhD is a Sustainability Solutions Community Engagement Fellow in the Environmental Justice Research Lab in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences in the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Valencia is a first-generation college Latina, born and raised in Boyle Heights. She earned her BS in Psycho-bio with a minor in Chicano Studies from UCLA; Master’s in Public Health with an emphasis in Environmental Health and Community Health from Cal State University Fullerton (CSUF) and PhD from the University of California Irvine (UCI) Program in Public Health. Her research is focused on understanding the role that neighborhood resources have in engaging residents in discussions on environmental health disparities through qualitative research methods. She also assess the protective role of neighborhood institutions on air pollution exposure among Hispanic/Latino ethnic enclaves through quantitative research methods. She is currently collaborating on the Imperial Valley Respiratory Health & the Environment (AIRE) study.

Learn more about the USC Children's AIRE Study

Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcast

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