Public Health

Informing Safer Groundwater

Groundwater in South and Southeast Asia often contains up to 100 times more arsenic than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit, poisoning millions of people through toxic drinking water. The phenomenon was largely a mystery until The Terry Huffington Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Scott Fendorf and his team discovered how bacteria living in shallow sediment layers of permanently flooded wetlands catalyzes arsenic release into groundwater. Read more.

Making Sanitation Sustainable

Lack of access to toilets and sustainable sanitation suffered by approximately one out of every four people globally has devastating effects on public health. Stanford researchers found that child growth improves when open defecation is reduced. Stanford’s Water, Health and Development program hosted a webinar focused on container-based sanitation solutions as a way to address the need for sanitation. As evidence, nearly 75 percent of urban Haitians who participated in a trial using a portable dry toilet and a related service chose to pay to continue it according to a study co-authored by former Woods Rising Environmental Leaders Program fellows Kory Russell and Sebastian Tilmans. Read more.

Reaching for Water Goals

Stanford researchers launched a World Bank-funded study of the health impacts of access to chlorinated water in Bangladesh. This work became part of an interactive e-book for middle and high school students that illustrates how scientists and engineers solve problems . Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow Jenna Davis worked actively with the U.N. General Assembly to develop ambitious goals, targets and indicators for water supply and sanitation services including monitoring over the next 15 years. Read more.

Understanding Insect-Borne Disease

Stanford researchers are actively engaged in studying insect-borne illnesses such as Zika virus, which is transmitted through mosquitos and has reached epidemic levels in some parts of the world. Woods-affiliated Associate Professor of Pediatrics Desiree LaBeaud advised the public on how to avoid infection. In the San Francisco Bay Area, trail-lined open space holds surprisingly higher risks of tick-borne disease such as Lyme, according to a study by George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor Eric Lambin (Stanford Earth). Read more.

Finding Ecological Solutions

Emphasizing the connection between ecological and environmental factors and human disease, researchers launched the Program for Disease Ecology, Health and Environment at Stanford in collaboration with Woods and the Center for Innovation in Global Health . The program, led by Woods Senior Fellow Giulio De Leo (Biology) and Susanne Sokolow, research associate at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, will focus on finding sustainable ecological solutions to a range of diseases.