Studying link between pollutants and disease
November 8, 2005
As an epidemiologist, Matthew Bonner thinks it's the prerogative of his field to explore the science of what causes disease, as well as work toward public health-oriented goals.
"There's a debate going on in (the field of) epidemiology right now," explains Bonner, who joined the faculty of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health and Health Professions this semester. "Should we be doing things that only have public health ramifications...as opposed to having a better understanding as to how exposures in general cause disease in humans?"
"The way I think about it," he continues, "is that you want both. But I'm more comfortable on the science side of it."
Before joining the UB faculty this August, Bonner spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. At NCI, he says, researchers were studying a region in China where people use a specific kind of coal to heat their homes that produces a type of pollutant called polycyclic hydrocarbons. There, rates of lung cancer far exceed those of nearby towns that have similar demographic characteristics and rates of smoking. In those nearby towns, people heat their homes with smokeless coal.