Great Lakes Center Re-Designated PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre

The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has re-designated the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health at the UIC School of Public Health, as a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre in Occupational and Environmental Health for another four-year period, through April, 2012. The center is one of four WHO Collaborating Centers in Occupational Health in the United States.

The Great Lakes Center was founded in 1977 as one of the first regional NIOSH Education and Research Centers in the United States. Over the past 28 years, the Center has added training and research programs in environmental health, children’s health, and global health, and initiated an Occupational Health Service Institute to provide community service.

A special congratulations goes to Leslie Nickels, who is leading Activity Area 4 (Training) for the WHO Network of Collaborating Centres in Occupational Health, and who will be on assignment at WHO Headquarters in Geneva for the next year. Because of the outstanding international work of Peter Orris, Linda Forst, and Lorraine Conroy and many others on our faculty, the University of Illinois School Of Public Health continues to be an important contributor to WHO’s goal of "Occupational Health for All."