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- E-Mail:
- rali@pitt.edu
- Telephone:
- 412-624-2942
- Website:
-
- Interests:
- Air, Water, Climate Change, Rural, Awareness-raising, Community Initiatives, Impact Assessment, Provision of healthcare
- Discipline(s)
- Medicine
- Role(s):
- Researcher
- Location(s) of Work:
- Indonesia
Current Institutional Affiliation(s)
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Center for Healthy Environments and Communities
Graduate School of Public HealthUniversity of PittsburghPittsburgh, PA
Biography
My research interests lie in conservation health, CBPR (community-based participatory research), and operations research as it relates to environmental and community health.
I collaborated with The Nature Conservancy and the Government of Indonesia on a health initiative for rainforest-dwelling peoples, part of an effort to protect endangered orangutans in Borneo. I also worked with Project HOPE to develop a district-wide program to improve health care in rural Aceh, Indonesia after the tsunami. In 2007 I began work on an environmental health initiative and university partnership in Wuhan, China. In Pittsburgh, I am particularly interested in promoting adolescent wellness and skill building, vegetarian nutrition, sustainable living, and community gardens and green spaces in low-income areas. At the Graduate School of Public Health I am the director of the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, supported by the Heinz Endowments. The center takes a community-based approach to social as well as physical aspects of local environmental health. Its mission is to become a central resource for information and collaboration, report on regional trends, increase the relevance of environmental health to local communities, and involve people in improving their lives and neighborhoods.
I serve on advisory committees for several local environmental organizations and several committees for the Pittsburgh Public Schools. I am a member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Board for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM). I also serve as faculty advisor for several University of Pittsburgh student organizations. In 2007 I was nominated for the Chancellor's Distinguished Faculty Service Award.
Publications and Resources
Journal Articles
- Robbie Ali. Wuhan, China and Pittsburgh, USA: Urban Environmental Health Past, Present and Future. EcoHealth. 2008.
- Robbie Ali. A Conservation Health Program in Indonesian Borneo: Lessons Learned . Environmental Practice. 2008.
- Robbie Ali. Connecting Environmental Health Data to People and Policy: Integrating Information and Mobilizing Communities for Environmental Public Health Tracking. Journal of Community Health. 2007.
- Robbie Ali. Saving the Rainforest through Health Care: Medicine as Conservation in Borneo. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health. 2007.
- Robbie Ali, David Christiani. A Case-Control Study of Parental Occupation, Leukemia, and Brain Tumors in an Industrial City in Taiwan. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2004.