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Webinar: Lessons Learned from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Role of Disaster Research Response in Protecting Public Health
October 2, 2019 @ 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Please join us on Wednesday, October 2nd at 10 AM for the next Environmental Health Seminar, is presented in partnership with Health Canada’s Environmental and Radiation Health Sciences Directorate (ERHSD) Seminar series.
Environmental disasters such as oil spills, hazardous waste releases and other natural and anthropogenic calamities routinely impact public health, yet researchers and studies often arrive too late to be able to collect valuable data that will help us to better understand the human and environment health impacts and the efficacy of our policies and responses to such events. To address this important research gap, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed the Disaster Research Response Program (DR2).
Presenter: Dr. Richard Kwok, Chief of Staff (acting), Office of the Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Richard Kwok, Ph.D. is a staff scientist in the Epidemiology Branch at NIEHS and is the Lead Associate Investigator for the GuLF STUDY. This study focuses on the potential health effects of clean-up workers, volunteers, and community members from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Dr. Kwok specializes in the environmental causes of a range of diseases, and the pervasive nature of the environment in disease etiology has allowed him to work on a number of different projects with domestic and international collaborators from federal, academic, and industry sectors. His work has included research into air and water pollution, including arsenic, and non-ionizing UV radiation exposures with outcomes including cardiovascular, respiratory, reproductive and cancer health outcomes. Kwok received his B.S.P.H. in environmental science, and his M.S.P.H. and Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.