{{Infobox scientist | name = Lara Cushing | image = | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = | residence = | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | children = | field = Public health | occupation = Research scientist | work_institutions = University of California, Los Angeles | alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley | signature = | website = https://erg.berkeley.edu/people/lara-cushing/ }} '''Lara J. Cushing''' is an assistant professor of environmental health sciences and holds the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Presidential Chair in Health Equity at the Fielding School of Public Health of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).<ref name="FSPH">{{cite news |author=UCLA Fielding School of Public Health |title=Dr. Lara Cushing Appointed to Fielding Presidential Chair in Health Equity at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health |url=https://www.newswise.com/articles/dr-lara-cushing-appointed-to-fielding-presidential-chair-in-health-equity-at-the-ucla-fielding-school-of-public-health |access-date=21 October 2021 |work=NewsWire |date=1 October 2021}}</ref>
Cushing studies exposures to environmental hazards and their relationship to social inequalities involving race and class. She also studies effects on pregnant women and infants. She addresses the health consequences of living near greenspace, urban heat islands, hazardous materials sites, oil and gas drilling sites and exposure to dangerous chemicals in the air and water. She examines the disparate impacts of global climate change, sea level rise and other issues involving environmental justice.<ref name="ERI"/><ref name="Faculty"/>
==Career== Cushing has a B.S. in molecular environmental biology, an M.P.H. in epidemiology (2011),<ref name="Chan"/> and a PhD in energy & resources (2015) from the University of California, Berkeley.<ref name="ERI">{{cite web |title=PERE Affiliate Researchers Lara Cushing |url=https://dornsife.usc.edu/pere/cushing/ |website=Equity Research Institute |access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref>
From 2016-2020 Cushing was an assistant professor in the Department of Health Education at San Francisco State University.<ref name="Faculty">{{cite web |title=Lara Cushing |url=https://ph.ucla.edu/faculty/cushing |website=UCLA Fielding School of Public Health |access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref> In addition she was a visiting scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.<ref name="ERI"/>
As of October 2021, she became an assistant professor of environmental health sciences and the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Presidential Chair in Health Equity at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.<ref name="FSPH"/>
== Research== Cushing received an EPA STAR Graduate Fellowship (2012–2015) in support of her Ph.D. work, to examine health impacts of climate change and their relationship to race, ethnicity and class in Texas, from an environmental justice perspective.<ref name="STAR">{{cite web |title=An Environmental Justice Analysis of the Health Impacts of Climate Change EPA Grant Number: FP917447 |url=https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract_id/9980 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021210044/https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract_id/9980 |archive-date=October 21, 2021 |website=Environmental Protection Agency |access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref>
In addition she was a 2014 Environmental Fellow of the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation,<ref name="Switzer">{{cite web |title=Lara Cushing |url=https://www.switzernetwork.org/users/lara-cushing |website=Switzer Foundation |access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref> and a 2018 JPB Environmental Health Fellow of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.<ref name="Chan">{{cite web |title=Lara Cushing |url=https://ehfellows.sph.harvard.edu/uncategorized/lara-cushing/ |website=The JPB Environmental Health Fellows Program |publisher=Harvard: T.H. Chan School of Public Health |access-date=21 October 2021 |language=en-us |date=1 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="JPB">{{cite news |title=Cushing Wins Prestigious Fellowship in Environmental Health |url=https://publichealth.sfsu.edu/news-announce/cushing-wins-prestigious-fellowship-environmental-health |access-date=21 October 2021 |work=San Francisco State University |date=October 15, 2018}}</ref>
Cushing was a contributing author to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007)<ref name="Faculty"/> and IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).<ref name="Rausser">{{cite web |title=Lara Cushing |url=https://erg.berkeley.edu/people/lara-cushing/ |website=Energy and Resources Group |date=4 October 2013 |publisher=University of California Berkeley |access-date=22 October 2021}}</ref>
She is interested in analytical methods for epidemiological studies and in developing regulatory frameworks to reduce environmental health disparities. She helped to develop a statewide environmental justice screening tool for use in California: the California Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool or CalEnviroScreen proposed as part of California Senate Bill 535 (2012).<ref name="OEHHA">{{cite web |title=Reports & Publications |url=https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/reports-publications |website=Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment |publisher=California Environmental Protection Agency |access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref>
In 2018, Cushing and others published the results of studying California's cap-and-trade program. Evidence from the carbon-trading program between 2011 and 2015 supported concerns that companies would keep emitting. Half of the facilities involved actually increased in-state emissions during the period observed. Facilities in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to increase emissions.<ref name="Rosen">{{cite news |last1=Rosen |first1=Julia |title=Can California's cap and trade address environmental justice? {{!}} Greenbiz |url=https://www.greenbiz.com/article/can-californias-cap-and-trade-address-environmental-justice |access-date=21 October 2021 |work=GreenBiz |date=December 16, 2020 |language=en}}</ref>
In 2020, Cushing and Jill E. Johnston reported on the potential health impacts on pregnant women of flaring in the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas. Their results showed that women who lived closer to the flares had a 30-50% higher risk of premature birth and lower birth weight than women who did not live near oil and gas wells. In addition, self-identified Latina or Hispanic women were exposed to more flaring and were at higher risk of preterm birth.<ref name="Rosenb">{{cite news |last1=Rosen |first1=Julia |title=Study Links Gas Flares to Preterm Births, With Hispanic Women at High Risk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/climate/gas-flares-premature-babies.html |access-date=21 October 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=July 22, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Gas">{{cite news |title=Exposure to natural gas flaring raises risk of preterm birth by 50% |url=https://guardian.ng/features/exposure-to-natural-gas-flaring-raises-risk-of-preterm-birth-by-50/ |location=Lagos, Nigeria|access-date=21 October 2021 |date=31 July 2020|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref><ref name="Marks" group="July 20, 2020">{{cite web |last1=Marks |first1=Michael |title=Risk Of Preterm Births Significantly Greater Near Natural Gas Flaring Sites, Study Finds |url=https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/risk-of-preterm-births-significantly-greater-near-natural-gas-flaring-sites-study-finds/ |website=Texas Standard |access-date=21 October 2021 |date=20 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="Hopper">{{cite news |last1=Hopper |first1=Leigh |title=Half a million Americans are exposed to health risks of oil and gas flaring |url=https://news.usc.edu/183286/americans-oil-gas-flaring-health-risks-usc-research/ |access-date=21 October 2021 |work=USC News |date=11 March 2021}}</ref>
==Selected publications== * {{cite journal |last1=Cushing |first1=Lara J |last2=Chau |first2=Khang |last3=Franklin |first3=Meredith |last4=Johnston |first4=Jill E |title=Up in smoke: characterizing the population exposed to flaring from unconventional oil and gas development in the contiguous US |journal=Environmental Research Letters |date=1 March 2021 |volume=16 |issue=3 |page=034032 |doi=10.1088/1748-9326/abd3d4 |bibcode=2021ERL....16c4032C |s2cid=232225505 |issn=1748-9326|doi-access=free }} * {{cite journal |last1=Cushing |first1=Lara |last2=Blaustein-Rejto |first2=Dan |last3=Wander |first3=Madeline |last4=Pastor |first4=Manuel |last5=Sadd |first5=James |last6=Zhu |first6=Allen |last7=Morello-Frosch |first7=Rachel |title=Carbon trading, co-pollutants, and environmental equity: Evidence from California's cap-and-trade program (2011–2015) |journal=PLOS Medicine |date=10 July 2018 |volume=15 |issue=7 |article-number=e1002604 |doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002604 |pmid=29990353 |pmc=6038989 |language=en |issn=1549-1676 |doi-access=free }} * {{cite journal |last1=Cushing |first1=Lara |last2=Morello-Frosch |first2=Rachel |last3=Wander |first3=Madeline |last4=Pastor |first4=Manuel |title=The Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Health of Everyone: The Relationship Between Social Inequality and Environmental Quality |journal=Annual Review of Public Health |date=18 March 2015 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=193–209 |doi=10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646 |pmid=25785890 |issn=0163-7525|doi-access=free }} * {{cite journal |last1=Cushing |first1=Lara |last2=Faust |first2=John |last3=August |first3=Laura Meehan |last4=Cendak |first4=Rose |last5=Wieland |first5=Walker |last6=Alexeeff |first6=George |title=Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Cumulative Environmental Health Impacts in California: Evidence From a Statewide Environmental Justice Screening Tool (CalEnviroScreen 1.1) |journal=American Journal of Public Health |date=1 November 2015 |volume=105 |issue=11 |pages=2341–2348 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2015.302643|pmid=26378826 |pmc=4605180 |issn=0090-0036}}
==Notes== {{reflist|group=July 20, 2020}}
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cushing, Lara}} Category:Living people Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:American epidemiologists Category:Public health researchers Category:Year of birth missing (living people)