Asst. Prof. Hernando Perez, PhD, MPH, CIH, Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health, recently received a nearly $90,000 grant from The Barra Foundation, Inc., in support of a 15-month pilot study on environmental health outreach at the 11th Street Family Health Services Center. The study is slated to serve as a model program for residential environmental health education in low-income, urban settings.
Dr. Perez will serve as the principal investigator of the grant. His research interests include children's environmental health, housing and health, and environmental and occupational exposure assessment, with a particular focus on bioaerosols.
In collaboration with the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Dr. Perez has also developed a training program for workers involved in a community based participatory asthma intervention project in housing choice voucher properties (Section 8 Housing) in Philadelphia. He also led a joint research project with the Drexel University College of Engineering designed to examine the combined role that environmental exposures and dietary deficiencies play in pediatric asthma.
Dr. Perez served as consultant, facilitator, and report writer to the Mold Task Force of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. He was an evaluation advisor to the Philadelphia Department of Health, and served as a grant reviewer at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Lead Hazard Control Grant Program.
He received his PhD in Industrial Hygiene from Purdue University and MPH in Environmental and Occupational Health from Emory University. Dr. Perez is certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene and serves as director of the Drexel School of Public Health’s industrial hygiene consulting service.