Jeffrey Brook receives shared teaching appointment at DLSPH and Engineering
October 16/2018
Jeffrey Brook — a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in air quality and health — received a budgetary cross appointment at DLSPH and U of T Engineering on September 1, 2018.
“Environment continues to be a key interest to all students and through both classes and research I hope to enable and inspire them to tackle today’s challenges using both public health and engineering knowledge, ” said Brook, an Assistant Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health.
Brook leads the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE), a signature initiative funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research. His CANUE research team links standardized environmental exposure data about air quality, green spaces, walkability, noise, weather and climate and aspects of urban and suburban environment to public health data. Its goal is to improve understanding of how cities can evolve to optimize health.
In a recent project, Brook and a team of researchers connected detailed environmental data with public health data, which will enable scientists to better understand the cumulative effect of the environment on one’s overall health over a lifetime based on one’s unique exposome.
“We’ve shown many times that air pollution, even at the relatively clean conditions in Canada, is a risk factor in chronic disease and reduces our lifespan, but we are just beginning to be able to assess the combined effect of the myriad of environmental factors affecting us, both negatively and positively, throughout our lives,” said Brook, formerly a Distinguished Senior Research Scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
In this academic appointment, Brook will supervise students at both DLSPH and the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, bringing both programs closer together.
He initially held a status-only faculty appointment with DLSPH. With this new appointment, Brook will take on more teaching opportunities and conduct more research on DLSPH’s behalf.
Brook is an alumnus of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and McGill University.