Brief Biography of Janvier Gasana

Janvier Gasana teaches graduate-level courses. Examples are 1) Principles of Environmental and Occupational (EO) Health Sciences / Management (He authored a textbook titled “Essentials of Environmental Health Management” ), 2) Occupational Health and Safety, 3) EO Epidemiology / Risk Assessment, 4) EO Diseases, 5) Global Environmental Health, 6) Health Impacts of Air, Soil/Land, and Water Pollution, and 7) Indoor Air Quality.

Janvier finished his PhD degree in Public Health with a major in environmental and occupational health sciences and a minor in environmental and occupational epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Before starting his graduate studies in Chicago, he was as an Assistant Professor and Head of the Rwandan Medical School Center for Public Health Department of Environmental and Occupational Hygiene (from 1984 to 1988). During his tenure, he conducted community-based studies in the area of environmentally related diseases and health conditions in underserved communities while at the Center for Public Health. This Center is an institute established by the WHO (World Health Organization) in 1967. Its mission was to serve as a "Reference Health Center" for the entire country in the area of primary health care (PHC) and provide theoretical and practical training in public health to the medical and public health students. It is here that he used for the first time the Community Health Workers (CHWs), an idea that came out of the 1978 World Health Organization (WHO) Assembly in Almata, Russia. He was successful in expanding this concept in the communities of West Perrine and Little Haiti in Miami, FL through USEPA-funded research grants entitled "West Perrine” and “Little Haiti” Environmental Coalition Sanitation and Childhood Lead Poisoning Projects. Members of the coalition served as CHWs since there is a parallel between the work done through the Environmental Coalition and the concept of primary health care.

While in the graduate school in Chicago, he served as a consulting occupational health specialist for 5 years (from 1989 to 1993) with John Crane International Systems, in Chicago area (Morton Grove). Before he worked as a consulting environmental health risk assessor with USEPA–Region V (Chicago) for a year. The goal of his research has always been to address health disparity / environmental justice issues He published the results of his work in the scientific journals and presented the results of his research at local, state, national and international conferences.

In 2001 and 2005, Dr. Gasana added respectively Dr. Martin Luther King Service Award and Health Care Professional Award for 2005 Health Care Heroes by Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce to the raft of many awards and honors he has received so far. Currently, Dr. Gasana is working on his board certification in Environmental and Occupational Medicine to provide clinical evaluation services to communities affected by hazardous waste sites and their primary health care providers as he believes that their knowledge on this issue is limited. Gasana’s ongoing research work aimed at uplifting children suffering from environmental health hazards including lead poisoning and triggers asthma and his active involvement with various agencies and health centers with the goal of improving the environmental conditions of the low-income families are in line with Einstein’s words “We are here for the sake of other humans.”