By
JABARI GIBBS/The Current
After decades of pollution, Brunswick residents have a new resource for researching the link between area Superfund sites and their health. A five-year, $15 million grant from the National Institutes of Environmental Health (NIH) has been awarded to Emory University to examine how environmental contaminants affect human health, following a 2023 pilot study involving approximately 100 Glynn County residents, according to the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.Emory will lead the research in partnership with university faculty from the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse School of Medicine, Spelman College, and Texas Tech University.“By combining cutting-edge exposure science and health research with direct community partnerships, the center will translate complex environmental data into practical information that can support healthier decisions for families, clinicians, and policymakers,” said Dana Barr, a professor of environmental health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and director of the new Superfund Research Center.
Glynn County is home to four of Georgia’s 23 Superfund sites, industrial areas that the federal government has designated as highly contaminated and requiring monitoring and ongoing cleanup.
