Community-Oriented Research Programs

Consistent with its philosophy of community involvement, Mount Sinai places a particularly strong emphasis on prevention and health policy. As a founding discipline of the School, the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine—one of the oldest, largest and most active of its kind in the country—has embodied this emphasis for more than thirty years. Its missions throughout that time: community-based health promotion and disease prevention, protecting communities against environmental toxins, and designing effective and humane systems for the delivery of medical care.

From the outset, research has been central to these goals. A key focus in recent years has been the prevention of illness in children, a concern crucial not only to East Harlem, but also to the nation as a whole. In the past decade, asthma rates have doubled, cancer has become the second most common cause of death, and neurodevelopmental abnormalities seem to be on the rise. All these disorders have known or suspected links to environmental pollution. With chemicals in the environment replacing infectious diseases as prime contributors to childhood illness, effective prevention hinges on clarifying the relationship in measurable, scientific terms.

Disease Prevention

Health Services Research

Outcomes Research