Amer El-Araf: Emeritus Professor Named One of 15 Leaders in Environmental Health

Amer El-Ahraf, emeritus professor, Health Science was named one of 15 “Leaders in Environmental Health” in the Jan.-Feb. issue of the Journal of Environmental Health. His career, spanning more than 30 years, includes experience in nearly every aspect of public health, from air quality management to developing environmental education curriculum for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

A native of Cairo, El-Araf was greatly influenced by his father, a school principal,
and his brother, who introduced him to philosophy.

“They inspired me to view knowledge in a holistic manner,” he says. “That prepared me for the field of public health. I learned to appreciate the art of teaching and the value of caring about faculty, staff and students as an academic administrator. That prepared me to be a professor and an academic administrator.”

Among El-Araf's academic distinctions are serving as an honorary adjunct professor in an environmental science and technology program at Lagos State University in Nigeria; president of the American European University Consortium, Global University Forum in Hamburg, Germany; and a department chair and professor, at CSU San Bernardino. In his public health profession, he has served as president of the National Environmental Health Association, the California Environmental Health Association, and chairman of the International Environmental Health Faculty Forum.

With his global involvement in environmental issues, El-Araf underscores the importance of recognizing the social and political responsibility of caring for the environment.

“The maturity of the environment as a social and public issue has been expressed in the enactment of environmental legislation and the establishment of governmental agencies to enforce it,” he says. “In my book, The Impact of Public Policy on Environmental Quality and Health (With M. Qayoumi and Ron Dowd; Westport, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 1999), I wrote that environmental management must deal with the fact that caring for the environment is not only a scientific endeavor, but also a social issue. An educated citizenry is essential to establishing environmental concerns as public policy issues, with respect to their complex nature and public implications.”

On a more local level, El-Araf is teaching a graduate course at CSUDH this semester, titled, “Growing Older While Feeling Younger.” The course focuses on nutrition for mature adults, the role of caregivers, and an awareness of drug-nutrient interactions.

“Older adults face serious challenges in regard to nutrition,” he notes. “An overriding one is differentiating between food facts and food fads. In general, we have a growing population with heightened awareness of their health, yet, credible information is not always available in an easily understandable fashion.”

In combining his professional and academic interests to serve the public, El-Araf admits that he has been called a “consummate learner.”

“I consider public health to be a mission, not only a job,” El-Araf says. “with a public service value and a clear humanistic side to it. The field is a microcosm of a comprehensive and well-rounded university education. Today, my publications reflect broad and deep interests, with papers describing the results of laboratory experiments dealing with toxicology and liver cancer as well as those elaborating on the philosophy and management of environmental and public health. They even include poetry.

“There is a saying that I believe in: ‘The best of you is that who is engaged continually in attaining knowledge and teaching it.’ Public health affords me the opportunity to do both.”

- Joanie Harmon-Whetmore