Center for Healthy Air Water and Soil

About the Center

The human environment includes layered and complex relationships that interact with our physiology to determine health outcomes that range from optimal health to acute and chronic disease. The Center for Healthy Air Water and Soil (CHAWS) work emphasizes community-facing projects that aim to increase understanding about how these environments contribute to human health, wellbeing, or disease. 

Building on the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute’s scholarly work around establishing the field of environmental cardiology, the Center for Healthy Air Water and Soil’s work highlights the connections between individuals, communities, and their surroundings through the environmental determinants of health. CHAWS contributes to the Envirome's research agenda by identifying what aspects of the built environment contribute to environmental determinants of health and how these determinants impact health outcomes across Louisville Metro-Jefferson County.

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.