Drew Hill '09

Environmental Health Strategy Center of Maine, Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine
Waterville, Maine

January 2009

My internship is with the Environmental Health Strategy Center (EHSC). EHSC
(http://www.preventharm.org) is a non-profit organization in Maine with the goal of
protecting human health by “reducing exposure to toxic chemicals, expanding the use of
safer alternatives, and building partnerships that focus on the environment as a public
health priority.” They work to accomplish this goal through grassroots movements and
state campaigns as well as the dissemination of their public health models and legislation
to national and global public health networks.

As a research intern for the Environmental Health Strategy Center (EHSC), I spent the
majority of my time researching current literature on Bisphenol-A. Specifically, I
researched exposure types, health and behavioral effects, and legislation concerning
Bisphenol-A. I also devoted some of my time to researching “obesogens,”
environmentally present chemicals that have been shown to facilitate obesity. The final
fruit of my labors was an annotated bibliography and executive summary of exposure
types, health and behavioral effects, and legislation concerning Bisphenol-A. This dossier
will be used to quickly and efficiently educate legislators as well as uninformed workers
at EHSC.

My internship was carried out from an on-campus. The literature research I performed
was entirely web-based, and, with the seemingly infinite access to web-databases and
electronic journals, I was able to work out of the Diamond GIS lab or my dorm-room.

While working on-campus was not conducive to learning a lot about the organization
(EHSC), I learned a considerable amount about literature-research methods and the field
of environmental health as a whole. Moreover, I became a veritable expert on the current
situation of and scientific knowledgebase of Bisphenol-A.