About the Center
The Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH) was established in 1977 at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, to coordinate training, research, continuing education and outreach activities relating to occupational and environmental health.
The mission of the SWCOEH is to promote health, safety, and well being in the workplace and the community. The overall goal of the Center is to respond to the critical need for well-trained occupational and environmental health specialists by providing graduate-level academic training and continuing education with an underlying foundation of a state-of-the-art occupational and environmental health research program.
The SWCOEH is one of 16 NIOSH-supported Education and Research Centers (ERCs), and serves the five states in Federal Region VI (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas). The ERC incorporates faculty and students from various disciplines related to occupational and environmental health. The Center has core programs in Industrial Hygiene, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Occupational Health for Nurses, Occupational Safety Engineering and Continuing Education/Outreach; special emphasis programs in Occupational Epidemiology and Injury Prevention; and coordination of research activities. All of these programs are housed in the Houston campus of The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston with the exception of the Occupational Safety Engineering Program located at the Cullen College of Engineering of the University of Houston which is approximately 5 miles from the School of Public Health campus.
The SWCOEH is also one of 18 NIH Fogarty International Center-supported research and training centers. The purpose of this international training program is to prepare foreign professionals in occupational and environmental health to meet the challenges and demands placed on society by the changing occupational and environmental issues around the globe. The focus of the SWCOEH program is Latin America, with activities in Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Colombia, and in partnership with key collaborating academic and/or government institutions in each of these countries. The SWCOEH has also been a WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health since 1986 and a member of the global Network of WHO Collaborating Centres since 1992.
