The GOEHU research team consists of laboratory scientists, physicians, occupational hygienists, clinical fellows, respiratory therapists, technologists, and graduate and undergraduate students. Although a wide variety of occupational and environmental research takes place at GOEHU, a major thrust of our research effort relates to understanding the origin, composition, fate, and health impact of aerosol contaminants of outdoor and indoor environments.
GOEHU is equipped with pulmonary function and ultrasound laboratories, examination rooms, a phlebotomy room, and an on-site hematology laboratory. GOEHU also has a fully equipped microbiological laboratory specialized in bioaerosol analysis, including biochemical, molecular diagnostic, and immunoassay procedures. Laboratory facilities to support a range of chemical analyses of occupational and environmental samples are available, including a wide range of personal and environmental air sampling pumps and calibration equipment. As a major partner in the Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research (SOCAAR), GOEHU researchers have access to additional state-of-the-art aerosol research facilities, including the only ambient ultrafine (<0.1um), fine (0.1-2.5um) and coarse (2.5-10um) particle concentrating system in Canada. With this system, ambient air adjacent to busy downtown College Street in Toronto is drawn in and passed through a series of concentrators that selectively remove ambient gases, thereby concentrating particles in the air stream. The resulting concentrated ambient particulate (CAP) may be used for human and animal inhalation studies under well-controlled and characterized conditions to investigate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the cardiovascular and respiratory effects of particulate air pollutants. GOEHU also has a 1 m3 aerosol generation chamber for research and validation studies of aerosol sampling devices. In addition, the St. Michael's hospital site of GOEHU features a fully-equipped occupational medicine clinic and research facility with world-class expertise and diagnostic instrumentation to study hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), occupational dermatitis, and other occupational diseases.
Family Medicine Postgraduate Occupational Health Video Resource: Brief screening occupational history as part of a medical interview.
Data downloaded from direct reading instruments can often be difficult to process. This novel data analysis tool produced by Dr. Ian Drummond uses a Microsoft Excel platform to analyse downloaded data from direct reading instruments to identify important data trends, such as STELs.
