The College of Health will play crucial roles in advancing two of the four research areas identified in the university’s strategic plan, Prosperity Widely Shared: Integrated health and biotechnology, and climate science and related solutions.

Our three signature areas not only contribute to OSU’s ambitious goals but also leverage existing strengths, build opportunities for distinction, and increase our national and international visibility and reputation. 

Environmental Impacts on Human Health

Environments play major roles in influencing our health.

Faculty address the health effects of multiple adverse environmental exposures (e.g., noise, air and water pollution, aeroallergens, radon), climate change, and natural disasters. Others focus on the effects of the built environment on health behaviors and outcomes (e.g., asthma, cancer, cardiometabolic risk factors and diseases, food insecurity, mental health).

Collaborating across disciplines and leveraging the university’s diverse strengths, our researchers are developing prevention and resilience solutions and translating evidence-informed policies, programs, and practices to communities.

We focus on health disparities and inequities, with sensitivity to how impacts stem from and are experienced in social environments. These impacts are often more severe for those with fewer resources, particularly in communities of color and marginalized groups and in low-income settings and populations.

We integrate the expertise of faculty from multiple disciplines and fields, including public health, kinesiology, nutrition, and human development and family sciences.

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

We believe that health is a human right, essential to the ability of individuals to function and flourish in society.

Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, mental health, and substance use disorders are leading causes of death and disability in the United States.

As populations age, acute and chronic diseases create social, medical, and economic burdens. In addition, racial and ethnic minoritized groups are at disproportionate risk of experiencing negative health outcomes from preventable and treatable conditions.

Faculty expertise contributes to all three levels of disease prevention.

Many focus on primary prevention to avoid the occurrence of disease or injury.

Faculty address the impact of social and economic determinants of health (e.g., work-family policies, health care reforms, behavioral and mental health services, school physical education policies) and promote healthy and safe behaviors (e.g., nutritious eating, physical activity, cancer screenings, smoking and substance use cessation, vaccine uptake).

Others focus on secondary and tertiary prevention to reduce the progression and effects of disease and injury and to manage health problems and injuries (e.g., osteoporosis, fall prevention, cognitive decline and dementia, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes).

Faculty are uniquely positioned to integrate environmental and biological information with social, policy, and behavioral data to promote health, prevent disease, and improve quality of life and life expectancy.

Health and Well-being of Children and Youth

Our researchers are dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of all children and youth, which also lays the foundation for health and well-being over many decades of adult life.

Faculty focus on the critical roles that social policies, families, educational settings, and communities play in promoting positive early child and youth development.

Child-focused researchers study self-regulation, early education and readiness for school, parenting styles and behaviors, housing, and poverty.

Faculty also have expertise in improving quality of life through physical activity and motor skill development and providing those with developmental and acquired disabilities equitable access to play and mobility, including toy- and game-based technologies.

Because youth is a critical period connecting childhood and adulthood, faculty focus on healthy and risky behaviors of teens and young adults.

For example, some study behaviors such as safer sexual activity (e.g., preventing sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies, promoting sexual health for LGBTQ+ individuals, treating hepatitis C) and substance use (e.g., vaping and smoking, marijuana, misuse of prescription stimulants or opioids).

Others focus on leadership development, social belonging/isolation, and healthy relationships with peers and partners.

Research Foundational Strengths

These clusters of research excellence are anchored in the foundational strengths of our researchers: A lifespan perspective, a social determinants of health framework, and expertise in multiple research methods including quantitative and qualitative data analysis, community-engaged research, and implementation science.

Our signature areas will benefit from the university’s expanding capacity in data science and AI and the Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex.

In addition, our Extension Family and Community Health and 4-H faculty, embedded in all 36 counties across Oregon, collaborate with communities to develop local solutions to pressing health challenges.

Four college-based centers also fuel our work:

• Center for Healthy Aging Research
• Center for Global Health
• Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families
• Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition and Preventive Health