Environmental determinants of appendicitis are poorly understood. Past work suggests that air pollution may increase the risk of appendicitis. The researchers investigated whether ambient ground-level ozone (O3) concentrations were associated with appendicitis and whether these associations varied between perforated and nonperforated
appendicitis.

Environmental health research employs a variety of metrics to measure heat exposure, both to directly study the health effects of outdoor temperature and to control for temperature in studies of other environmental exposures, including air pollution. To measure heat exposure, environmental health studies often use heat index, which incorporates both air temperature and moisture. However, the method of calculating heat index varies across environmental studies, which could mean that studies using different algorithms to calculate heat index may not be comparable.

From plastics to flame retardants, the ubiquitous chemicals of our daily lives have raised public health concerns like never before. Inside the Beltway, however, data-crunching scientists are often no match for industry lobbyists and corporate lawyers. The exception, no doubt, is Linda Birnbaum, the toxicologist who leads, two little-known scientific agencies, the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP).

As the world urbanizes, global health challenges are increasingly concentrated in cities. Currently, over 80% of the population in Latin America already lives in cities. The African urban population is projected to double in the next decade and China has urbanized in thirty years at a rate it took Europe and North America a century. Rapidly growing new cities and increasingly segregated older cities in the global north and south are contributing to health inequities.