The National Institutes of Environmental Health has awarded Emory University a $15 million grant to study the health effects of environmental contaminants from Superfund sites in the Brunswick, Georgia, area, university officials announced June 11.
The five-year grant, administered through Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health, builds on a 2023 pilot study involving approximately 100 Glynn County residents. That initial work evaluated potential connections between longstanding industrial pollution and adverse health outcomes among residents living near Superfund sites.
Emory will lead the research in partnership with 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’s Rollins School of Public Health and director of the new Superfund Research Center.
The Brunswick area has been the site of multiple federal Superfund designations stemming from decades of industrial activity, including operations by a former wood-treating plant that released hazardous chemicals into the soil and groundwater. Residents and environmental groups have long called for a comprehensive, long-term health study examining the cumulative effects of exposure.
The grant establishes a formal research infrastructure to produce such data. The center’s mission, according to the university, is to combine exposure science with community-engaged research, producing findings that can guide both clinical care and regulatory policy in communities facing similar contamination burdens.