Everyone Should Be Able to Breathe Easier
Larry N. Vanderhoef
Chancellor, University of California, Davis
November 20, 2008

How many children do you know who have asthma? In certain urban areas around the country, such as New York City and Fresno, California, record numbers of children have asthma and carry an inhaler to school every day. How many elderly people do you know who have trouble breathing or have cardiovascular diseases? Increasing numbers suffer from these ailments, as well. Many of these health problems have been associated with the array of air pollutants in our cities, such as ground-level ozone and particles. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 50,000 people die prematurely in this country from acute exposure to the particles alone, not including the chronic exposures to other pollutants. How can higher education contribute to solving this national and worldwide problem?

As with all environmental problems, many approaches and perspectives are needed to solve air quality ones. Scientists and engineers characterize and reduce emissions from various sources and use measurements and modeling to understand how these pollutants are transported and transformed in the atmosphere. Respiratory and cardiovascular biologists improve our understanding of where the pollutants deposit in the airways, how they migrate to other tissues, and what health effects they elicit in those tissues. Political scientists and economists work on legislation and legislative support so that appropriate regulations are enacted that limit the emissions in a cost-effective manner.

At the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), more than 200 faculty work on environmental problems from a wide range of perspectives. Most are affiliated with the John Muir Institute of the Environment, the Institute of Transportation Studies, or the Air Quality Research Center, and have appointments in the Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, and the Colleges of Engineering, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Letters and Science. Over 60 of these faculty are associated with the campus’s Air Quality Research Center, employing their diverse talents to help solve air quality problems around the country and the world.

Typically, universities are structured around departments that are mono-disciplinary, but this model is not suitable for solving many environmental problems. To facilitate multi and interdisciplinary approaches, UC Davis has established the centers and institutes mentioned above to help faculty work together. In addition, a large fraction of the master’s and PhD students at UC Davis obtain their degrees through Graduate Groups, which attract faculty and graduate students who are interested in multidisciplinary approaches to real world problems. Graduate students interested in air quality may obtain their degree from a disciplinary department, such as Civil and Environmental Engineering, or from a multidisciplinary graduate group, such as Atmospheric Science, Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, or Pharmacology and Toxicology.

This multidisciplinary approach has paid off. In just one example, nearly half of the scientists and policy analysts at the California Air Resources Board, which regulates air pollution in the state, are graduates of UC Davis. And the faculty working together on air quality have obtained tens of millions of dollars to support a wide array of projects that train students, investigate the health effects of pollutants, measure and model them, predict whether the pollutants will increase or decrease in the face of global climate change, and more.

As the campus looks outward to help improve Californians’ quality of life, UC Davis is looking inward to strengthen its commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability. Last spring, we launched an initiative that includes a new office to coordinate university-wide efforts on sustainability, seed money to support new projects, and the creation of a chancellor-level advisory committee. The new office will work with other units to develop strategies and plans to implement the UC Regents’ sustainability policies and inspire the university community to embark on additional leadership actions for sustainability in higher education.

In coming months, we will create a sustainability roundtable to include university, community, business, and research leaders. It will disseminate information about sustainability research initiatives, link the university to planning and research efforts in the region, and work with others on regional solutions to environmental issues—like helping more of our children attend school without inhalers.