Message from the Director
It has been more than 25 years since NIOSH first awarded The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston a training grant establishing a new Education and Research Center (ERC) with the objective of responding to the critical need for well-trained occupational health specialists by providing graduate-level academic training and continuing education with an underlying foundation of a state-of-the-art research program. As multidisciplinary centers, ERCs centers bring wide-ranging expertise in conducting biomedical and other advanced occupational safety and health research. Thus, it is impressive to note that the ERCs graduate almost half of the nation's post-baccalaureate occupational health and safety specialists, including the majority of occupational health nursing and occupational medicine graduates. As one of 16 such ERCs in the nation, the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health's (SWCOEH) educational and outreach programs serve the five-state region of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. Since its founding, our Center has grown to offer a broad complement of advanced degree programs in occupational medicine, occupational health for nurses, industrial hygiene, occupational safety engineering, occupational epidemiology and injury prevention. Internationally, the SWCOEH is the recipient of one of the first NIH Fogarty International Center training grants in occupational and environmental health, focused on Latin America, and has been a WHO Collaborating Centre in Occupational Health since 1986.
The abundant resources of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the surrounding Texas Medical Center make our Center an excellent site for a graduate level training and research program. The training facilities available to the SWCOEH include some of the finest academic and research facilities in the United States today, including state-of-the-art classroom, laboratory and library facilities. In addition to these physical resources, the intellectual or human resources available to trainees provide an environment where excellence in academics, research and community outreach are supported, challenged and encouraged.
I would like to welcome you to our new web pages, in hopes that they will provide useful information and stimulate you to learn more about the various services that the SWCOEH provides to the occupational and environmental health community.
