Center for Women's Health
EarthRose Institute's Center for Women's Health was founded in response to the growing need for disseminating information, providing education, and collaborating on research in the prevention of breast cancer and the role environmental exposures play in breast cancer and other immune disorders confronting women today.
According to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, breast cancer is now the most common form of cancer in women worldwide, with rates highest in industrialized nations. In the United States, a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer has nearly tripled during the past four decades, with current estimates of one in six women having this diagnosis in her lifetime.
Throughout their life cycle, women are exposed to a multitude of environmental toxins including many forms of estrogen-like chemical compounds, known as estrogen disruptors, estrogen mimickers, or xenoestrogens beginning in utero and continuing through menopause and beyond. Global research estimates that a woman’s cumulative exposure to estrogen may be responsible for up to 50% of all breast cancers today. According to the recent “State of the Evidence Report 2006”, research suggests that cumulative environmental exposures in combination with genetic pre-disposition, age at exposure, and hormonal milieu all impact breast cancer risk.
The Center for Women’s Health was created to:
Respond to critical women’s health issues with a sense of urgency
Promote awareness of environmental influences on women’s health
Advance the field of women’s health through participation in scientific research on environmental estrogen disruptors and other risk factors related to breast and other women’s cancers.
Educate women about preventive and integrative interventions to decrease environmental estrogen exposures and breast cancer risk
Collaborate with women’s organizations and environmental groups in promoting environmental awareness campaigns
Link To: Women's Health Programs
Center for Children's Health and Education
“Children are particularly vulnerable to many environmental threats, including a contaminated and unsafe physical environment. This heightened susceptibility derives primarily from the unique biological features that characterize the various stages of development from conception to adolescence.”
World Health Organization
The Center for Children’s Health has been created to deepen understanding of environmental effects on children’s health through education and research, and to disseminate this information to health care providers and to diverse communities.
CCHE faculty and researchers in the fields of environmental medicine and children’s health offer programs in prevention and treatment of environmentally triggered illnesses.
Our team provides integrative approaches and interventions that can significantly improve the health of children, their families and communities, as we confront the effects of living in a toxic world.
Children and Environmental Exposures
Toxic exposures can significantly alter not only the physical health of children, but also their behavior and cognitive function. Research has shown that children, including those in pre-natal development, are particularly vulnerable to chemicals. Their rapidly growing cells receive a disproportionate dose of contaminants, increasing risk factors for childhood illnesses as well as susceptibility to health-related illnesses during their lifetime. As a case in point, the Environmental Protection Agency issued guidelines in March 2005 for assessing early-life exposures to mutagenic carcinogens. The recent EWG / American Red Cross study showed definitive contamination of umbilical cord blood with 278 environmental contaminants. www.childenvironment.org
In children, developmental processes can be easily disrupted. Many organ systems in young children including the nervous system, the reproductive organs, and the immune system undergo very rapid growth and development in the first months and years of life. During this period, structures are developed and vital connections are established.
Recent research has found that exposure to environmental toxins can permanently reprogram normal physiological tissue responses and thus lead to behavioral and immune suppression in susceptible individuals.
Children: Our Future
Many diseases that are triggered by toxins in the environment require decades to develop. Consequently, certain carcinogenic and toxic exposures sustained early in life appear more likely to lead to disease than do the same exposures encountered later in life.
The implication for environmental health is that children will have substantially heavier exposures pound for pound than adults to any toxins that are present in water, food, or air.
ERI’s teen and childhood programs are coordinated health programs that build an alliance of parents, teachers, school staff, and community partners to teach children and their families how to maintain health throughout their lives.
The Center for Children’s Health and Education was created to:
Promote education on the links between environmental exposure and immune function in children
Increase understanding of the interplay between nutrition, the environment, and healthy growth and development
Develop educational programs to address the role of the environment on cognitive function and learning disabilities
Provide environmental assessment tools and information to families and communities
Provide speakers and content for educational seminars or events
Offer environmental health education curriculum to schools for students, teachers, and staff.
Link To: Children's Health and Education Programs
Center for Professional Education and Research
EarthRose Institute has developed a series of environmental education programs for healthcare providers in response to our current crisis in environmental health.
Current research reveals that a multitude of environmental factors contribute to many current illnesses and disorders including immune dysfunction and increasing cancer rates, hormone and digestive imbalances, neurological problems and changes in cognitive function.
As a dedicated group of educators, practitioners, and researchers, experienced in integrative health care and environmental medicine, our ERI faculty has been providing leadership in the fields of environmental medicine and research to the healthcare community.
Healthcare professionals frequently see clients with a broad range of often overlooked environmental illnesses. Our professional programs present new tools and testing to assess environmental exposures and strategies for practitioners to implement into clinical practice, including nutritional, behavioral and detoxification programs to reduce an individual’s environmental health risks and toxic burden.
At the Center for Professional Education and Research, ERI:
Educates nurses, physicians, and other health care providers on environmental exposures and health risks in children and women’s health
Disseminates information regarding current and emerging environmental health research
Partners with Universities and Medical Centers in research areas related to women’s and children's health and the environment
Develops innovative strategies for testing environmental exposures to toxic compounds in high risk populations
Partners in research and education in the emerging science of Toxicogenomics and toxic exposure testing
Creates a database as a resource and clearing house for evidence based research and information
Provides curriculum and speakers for professional conferences and seminars focused on environmental health risks, issues and interventions
Provides information and outreach to other healthcare providers including mental health and CAM practitioners
Offers an e newsletter to disseminate current and emerging evidence based research to the professional community
Offers environmental health courses via online continuing education provider networks
Provide CEU’s for nurses in hospitals and diverse healthcare settings
Provides curriculum and speakers for professional conferences and seminars focused on environmental health risks, issues, and interventions
Link To: Professional Education and Research Programs
For more information contact: edu@earthrose.org
Center for Community Health Education and Outreach
The Center for Community Health Education and Outreach strives to promote health and improve quality of life for individuals and communities through educational programs focusing on the interactions between people and their environment. ERI’S programs use a holistic approach to promote and advocate for healthier communities.
ERI’S activities include:
Developing materials to facilitate environmental health education in diverse communities
Identifying environmental risk factors in assessing community health and provide education programs in collaboration with community health centers, schools and organizations
Development of environmental guidelines and recommendations for prevention and health promotion in diverse workplace environments
Program development with community health organizations to help assess and prevent exposures to toxic compounds in the home, food chain and environment
Provide Health Education Seminars on women’s environmental health issues through women's organizations, learning centers, church and civic groups
Provide trainings and technical assistance to state and local health agencies for promoting environmental health awareness and education
Collaborate with community based organizations in advocacy and information campaigns on creating healthier communities
Link To: Community Health Programs
