WELCOME

We talk much more about disease than we talk about health. What passes for discussion on health is mostly about the prevention of disease, the etection of disease and the treatment of disease. An overwhelming preoccupation with disease is an expensive and inefficient way to pursue health. Health is achieved through our interaction with the world around us - air, water and food, the people, the footpaths, the hurling pitches, night clubs and countryside. The Centre for Health from Environment (CHE) is working to place sustaining health through environmental stewardship at the centre of public policy through teaching, research and advocacy.

The Centre for Health from Environment is an integral part of the Ryan Institute. It functions as a virtual centre representing a bringing together of existing research strands and groups associated with the Ryan Institute and from the wider University Community to generate and sustain new academic activity, with research is divided into four areas:

- Air Quality & Health
- Water Quality, Sanitation & Health
- Health from Environment & Public Policy
- Health, Food & Soil

The CHE is managed by a steering committee of staff members who have an established record of collaboration and successful funding applications with each other in this area. There is no comparable Centre in an Irish University and it is clear from the emergence of such Centres in major international academic institutions and from calls for research proposals that there is a niche in this area that NUI Galway is well placed to fill.