About the Department
The Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra University (EHE-SRU) was set up, as a part of the Basic Science Research Wing of the university, in 1998 with the aid of financial assistance provided by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The department originally set up to provide occupational safety and industrial hygiene monitoring services to the leather/tanning industry in Tamil Nadu, has since then expanded to include a variety of R&D and training activities, that cover a broad spectrum of environmental health concerns. The department now functions as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health and as a Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Health for the Indian Council of Medical Research,
Govt. of India and has established itself as a pioneering centre for environmental and occupational health research and training. Involvement in several national and international extra-mural research projects and multiple inter-institutional linkages, administration of post-graduate and doctoral level training programs(in occupational and environmental health) and collaborations with a network of nearly 100 industries within and outside India for on-site projects represent some of the unusual strengths of this department. Using a combination of basic science and applied population research, the department has been involved in several local, national and global efforts in thrust areas of environmental and occupational health identified by the Government of India and The World Health Organisation.
The primary research focus of the department has been on conduct of health risk assessments for environmental pollutants (in both the occupational and ambient environment). The specific areas of involvement include exposure assessment, occupational and environmental epidemiology (including molecular epidemiology), environmental physiology & toxicology and more recently environmental genomics and health impact assessment. The department also provides routine occupational safety and health consultancy services to a wide spectrum of industries. The department is equipped with a state of the art environmental monitoring and industrial hygiene laboratory. An extensive infra-structure of laboratory instrumentation to engage in complicated field level quantitative assessments has also allowed the generation of large-scale population level exposure databases for a variety of environmental toxicants
The department is involved in R&D projects that have been funded both by national and international agencies including The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India, The Central Pollution Control Board, The Indian Council of Medical Research, The World Bank, The World Health Organisation, UNDP, The United States Environmental Protection Agency, The Fogarty International Centre (National Institutes of Health, USA), The International Development Research Centre (Canada), The United Nations Environment Program and The European Union to mention a few. The department actively collaborates with several university departments within the state of Tamil Nadu as well as governmental agencies such as Inspectorate of Factories, Govt. of Tamilnadu, The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, The Central Leather Research Institute, The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, and professional associations/ non-governmental organizations such as the National Safety Council - TN Chapter, The Indian Association of Occupational Health, The Safety Engineers Association and IMA.
The research projects have allowed EHE-SRU to use them as a base to launch post-graduate teaching programs hitherto not offered in India (in the areas of industrial hygiene and safety and occupational health; programs in environmental health and occupational medicine are currently being prepared for an offering next year). The elaborate network of collaborators in governmental institutions and industries has also enabled the training programs build considerable professional skills among students, many of whom are sponsored by reputed institutions within and outside the country. With disciplines of occupational medicine, environmental epidemiology, biostatistics, analytical chemistry, industrial hygiene and safety, safety engineering, ergonomics, molecular and genetic epidemiology, environmental genomics, environmental toxicology, community medicine, physiology, chest medicine and emergency medicine operating under a single administrative umbrella, SRU represents abilities to offer multi-disciplinary training. The availability of a full scale hospital facility adds an important dimension of being able to offer case-management and preventive health services to a large base of patients from many communities. The hospital facility also currently serves as a clinical teaching resource for occupational health practitioners undergoing long/short term training at SRU. The academic training components have benefited substantially from human resource and technical support provided by the Indo-German GTZ-CIM programme and the University of California, Berkeley (under support from the Fogarty International Centre, NIH, USA).
The faculty of the department is also involved in the conduct of several short-term training modules in the areas of environmental epidemiology, quantitative health risk assessment, industrial hygiene, indoor air quality, biomedical and hazardous waste management, chemical safety, occupational health monitoring, hazard and risk analysis, risk communication, basic and advanced industrial safety and occupational/environmental health management systems to name a few. Most training is conducted in collaboration with Government, academic or professional association partners to ensure wider reach and facilitate offerings that are based on formal and informal needs assessments.
The department has merited many important recognitions that include designation as a
I. UNIDO-OSH Center by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation for provision of occupational safety and health services to the leather industry
II. Technology Transfer Center by the Confederation of India Industries, under support from the Technology Development Board of Govt. of India, for the provision of occupational safety and health services to industries.
III. Collaborating Center of the International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre (CIS) Network by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the United Nations, Geneva for the provision of information services related to occupational safety and health.
IV. Air Pollution Related Disease Diagnostic Center (APRDC) by the GAIL (India) Limited for provision of diagnostic services related to air pollution
V. Collaborating Centre for The World Health Organisation for Research and Training in Occupational Health.
VI. Center for Advanced Research in Environmental Health for the Indian Council of Medical Research, Govt. of India
The future activities of the department will be centred around establishing a scientific network of interested organizations within and outside the country that would specifically be concerned with local environmental problems. Using a combination of rigorous scientific environmental health assessments, training and dissemination exercises and fostering interagency cooperation, the department hopes to contribute substantially to generation of crucial local environmental health information for use by policy-makers and the public at large. |
