On the Heights: July 2025
Departmental news, research highlights, community achievements, and more to help you stay connected with the Michigan Public Health community.
Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology
Federal budget cuts and worker safety
Michigan Public Health professor and researcher Rick Neitzel warns that federal cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which has lost two-thirds of its staff, will lead to more preventable workplace injuries and deaths across industries from mining to healthcare.
Wildland-urban fires trigger biological changes in firefighters, may explain increased cancer risks
Firefighters who fight fires in wildland urban interface zones, where undeveloped and developed land meet, appear to experience genetic changes that may help explain their elevated risk for certain cancers and other diseases, according to a study led by the University of Michigan.
Could riding older school buses hinder student performance?
Q&A with Meredith Pedde
Students who ride newer, cleaner-air buses to school have improved academic performance, according to the latest University of Michigan School of Public Health study that documents the effects on students who ride new school buses rather than old ones.
COHSE receives $9 million NIOSH grant to fund education and training
The Center for Occupational Health and Safety Engineering has received a five-year $9 million grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to continue its pivotal role in training the future generation of occupational health professionals.
Mistreatment of Michigan farmworkers: Researchers document abuses, push for change
Recent research, published in the Labor Studies Journal, documents a range of dehumanizing, stressful, unsafe, and unhealthy workplace and living conditions. In their qualitative research effort, University of Michigan social epidemiologists Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios and Alexis Handal specifically explore the effects of precarious employment and labor exploitation on how they affect the health of farmworkers and their families.