About CEH

About

PHFI Centre of Environmental Health

Welcome to the PHFI Centre for Environmental Health (CEH), a centre for knowledge creation and dissemination regarding the interdisciplinary field of environmental health. The Centre was launched in May 2016 by the Honourable Union Minister, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Shri J. P. Nadda. It was set up through an initial seed grant from Tata Sons and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
 
Embedded in the larger field of public health, environmental health refers to aspects of human health and diseases where a pivotal role is played by biological, chemical, physical, social and psychosocial factors in the environment. 

Advisory Committee

An eminent advisory committee guides the centre’s vision and mission.

Join us in shaping a sustainable future where environmental health is at the forefront of study and action. Together let’s breathe life into environmental health.

Vision

PHFI Centre for Environmental Health has a vision to strengthen India’s capabilities in the evolving field of environmental health across the country and in India’s unique position in the international environmental and policy landscape.

The Centre envisions building climate-resilient health systems in India that can respond to, cope with, recover from and adapt to climate-related shocks and stress, to bring sustained improvements in populations health, despite an unstable climate.

Mission

The mission of the Centre is to be a leading centre on environmental health on research, teaching, training and capacity building, community outreach, and providing evidence-informed policy guidance to all relevant stakeholders.

Our Approach: REACT

CEH activities are defined by the React approach. The REACT approach consists of 5 elements: 

Research: CEH   works with academic institutions in India and internationally, including the Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPH) within the Public Health Foundation of India, network prestigious institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Indian Council of Medical Research and others

Education: CEH collaborates with the IIPHs and various other government and non-government agencies to educate future policymakers, planners, environment and health professionals in India on to integrate various aspects of environmental health into course curricula.

Advocacy: In partnership with government and non-government agencies, CEH promotes evidence-based advocacy on environment health issues with policymakers at the highest level.

Collaborations:  CEH collaborates with various stakeholders across domains and geographies to build strong networks of research and demonstration projects for scale-up by competent agencies. CEH, in partnership with various institutions, including National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), will work towards building the capacity of hospitals and institutions in states towards climate resilience.

Technical Assistance:  CEH provides technical assistance, trainings and workshops for the adoption and scale-up of environmental health-friendly tools and processes by institutions. CEH will also support the various IIPHs and other partner institutions in providing technical support to states for managing essential public health programs related to climate and environmental issues like disaster management.

CEH has been established on 5 pillars- the 5I’s- Integration, Innovation, Impact, Institutionalization, Investments. 

At CEH we follow a D pathway for our processes and provide end-to-end solutions. The D pathway involves a) Data, b) Diagnosis, c) Design d) Demonstration, e) Documentation, f) Dissemination, and g) Diffusion.

Areas of Work

We translate knowledge into action by engaging in critical areas such as Environmental Pollution, Climate change and Disasters, Environment and Health Systems, One Health and Planetary Health, Occupational Health, and Research on Health and Environment. We are expanding into new areas of work such as environmental planning, environmental sociology, environmental architecture, landscape architecture, biodiversity and environmental conservation, climate change communication and others.

Partnerships & Collaborations

The Centre has MOUs with leading universities like University of East Finland, University of Port Harcourt, University of Edinburgh, University of South Denmark, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. MOUs have also been signed with prestigious Indian and international organisations like, United Nations Development Program, World Health Organisation, Wellcome Trust, National Centre for Disease Control, and Indian Council of Medical Research- NIREH.