Center for Healthy Air Water and Soil

About the Center

The Center for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil (CHAWS) at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute builds on pioneering work in environmental cardiology by exploring how the built and natural environments shape health outcomes. Using a multidimensional framework, CHAWS supports environmental research projects that emphasize the interrelationships between human health and place, with a focus on air, water, and soil quality. The Center is actively involved in community-facing projects that connect local residents to research, revealing the environmental determinants of health that influence conditions like asthma, COPD, and cardiovascular disease. Through this work, CHAWS aims to increase understanding of how fundamental ecology contributes to human health, wellbeing, or disease.

Areas of Focus

Air: The Center’s pioneering work in determining how exposure to outdoor air pollution increases the burden of asthma and COPD began with the AIR Louisville project. In 2015, AIR Louisville enrolled 1,147 Louisvillians and tracked where, when, and why they experienced asthma or COPD symptoms. 1.2 million data points collected by citizen scientists about their symptoms and medicine use were combined with 5.4 million environmental data points to show what air quality conditions exacerbate asthma and COPD symptoms in Louisville. Current air work for the Center includes a partnership with Louisville APCD to investigate air toxics in West Louisville (RATHA) and the Green Heart project. Through these studies, the Center will uncover how to alleviate the disproportionate cardiovascular and metabolic disease burden that exists in cities and especially in fenceline communities.

Water: Just like the blood system delivers life-giving oxygen to the lungs and disposes of waste through the kidneys, a city’s sewer system both delivers what is essential for life and provides important waste-removal services. It is essential to understand how a city’s natural and built infrastructure transfers pollutants and other contagions from their sources to locations of exposure. The Center has developed Louisville's waste-water-based epidemiology (WBE) system to track more than 40 diseases of interest to Louisville Metro Government's Department of Public Health and Wellness. This work began in 2020, when the Center tracked SARS-CoV-2 virus concentrations in Louisville’s wastewater and surface water. This work has expanded to include investigation into pollution exposure (VOC and heavy metals), emergency response, and screenings for diseases of special interest (measles, avian flu, and HepC).

Soil: Too little is known about the scale and severity of the threat that soil pollution poses to agricultural productivity, food safety, and human health. We must work to understand the complex relationship between food systems and the people they serve, starting by examining the connection between soil health, the nutritional integrity of the food grown, and human health outcomes.