Environmental Health Service

This service center is an internationally known and respected clinical and research unit. Environmental Health Services performs clinical/occupational procedures and studies related to the respiratory system. It performs cutting edge research on the health effects of air pollutants (e.g. ozone, sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide) and other environmental stresses, such as inhaled drugs, allergens, infectious agents, in a wide range of groups including healthy children and adults and patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and spinal cord injury.

The types of agents that are evaluated are diverse and originate outdoors, indoors, and in the workplace. Rancho has the only dedicated environmental center in Southern California capable of providing combined medical and direct exposure evaluation of these patients. The highly sophisticated expertise, resources, and facilities in the environmental health center would be cost-prohibitive to duplicate elsewhere. Thus, it is cost-efficient for patients with environmentally or occupationally related issues to be referred to Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center for quality medical environmental evaluation.

Two movable research facilities, designed and built by Environmental Health Services, offer unique laboratory capabilities for conducting community environmental research. The 10-foot by 60-foot facility is built on a mobile office-trailer chassis and is designed to study human subjects under a range of ambient environmental conditions. Complete air monitoring capabilities (including meteorological variables) are available. The research facility has been used in and around the Southern California area in several key studies of respiratory health and air pollution, and can be deployed to any location accessible by rail or road.

Contact Information

Henry Gong, Jr., M.D., Chief
Telephone: (562) 401-7561
Voicemail: (562) 401-7563
Fax: (562) 803-6883
E-mail: ehs.larei@verizon.net

For additional information visit: Los Amigos Research and Education Institute, Inc. (LAREI) Web site