Founded in 1996 by Harvard Medical School, the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School is dedicated to studying the human health consequences of global environmental change, and to promoting a wider understanding of these consequences among physicians, other health professionals, scientists, medical students, the media, policy-makers and the general public.

The work of the center rests on two hypotheses: Most people feel disconnected from the environment and do not understand that human health and life are dependent on the health of other species and on the integrity of global ecosystems; and that by translating the often abstract, technical science of global environmental change into terms that people can relate to, they can better understand their interdependent relationship to the global environment and develop the motivation to protect it.

The center has developed a variety of research, education and policy programs to fulfill its mission, and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation has made a number of the center's core programs possible. These include Human Health and Global Environmental Change, a course taught at Harvard Medical School that provides the next generation of physicians and public health professionals with an overview of the basic physics, chemistry and biology of global environmental degradation and the potential consequences of these changes for human health; and Global Environmental Change: The Science of Human Health Impacts, which is a two-day course for senior congressional staff. The center also publishes The Quarterly Review, an online journal that summarizes the most current scientific articles on a range of environmental issues.

For more information visit: chge.med.harvard.edu