Outdoor ambient air pollution is a growing challenge in low-income cities worldwide. Studies consistently show air pollution levels in cities in Eastern Africa are 3 to 4-fold the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines for outdoor air quality. Moreover, over 900 million Africans rely on polluting energy sources for cooking, and 600 million lack access to electricity making exposure to air pollution from the burning of wood, charcoal and kerosene in African households a major risk factors in the development of disease and death.
In an effort to respond to these challenges in Eastern Africa, in 2015 a research consortium composed of investigators at the University of Southern California (USC), USA; Colorado School of Public Health, USA; Columbia University, USA; University of Wisconsin—Madison, USA; South Coast Air Quality Management District, USA; Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia; Makerere University (MU) Uganda; University of Nairobi (UoN), Kenya; and University of Rwanda (UR), Rwanda (Eastern Africa GEOHealth Hub) came together to establish the Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) funded through a partnership between the Fogarty International Center at the US National Institute of Health, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. F
The GEOHealth Hub for Eastern Africa was formally established as a training and research collaboration focused (a) air pollution, (b) impacts of occupational exposures, and (c) health effects of climate change. The Hub headquarters are housed at AAU in Ethiopia and now at Columbia University in the United States, for the research (U01) and training (U2R) components, respectively.
GRIT Lab faculty and research assistants have served as capacity building and training collaborators to the Eastern African GEOHealth Hub since its establishment in 2015. Specific Hub-related activities taking place at the GRIT Lab include training material development, webinar programming, paper writing support, and research dissemination activity support.