Lara Cushing

Lara J. Cushing’s research focuses on social inequalities in exposure to environmental hazards and the cumulative impacts of environmental and social stressors to health. She has assessed the health consequences of environmental and climate-related exposures for pregnant women and infants, and investigated questions of environmental justice in the context of of oil and gas development, drinking water quality, and climate change. Her work aims to inform regulation addressing the joint effects of environmental and social stressors to health in order reduce environmental health disparities and often partners with community based organizations in her work. She was a contributing author to the Fifth Assessment of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a former Environmental Fellow of the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation, and JPB Environmental Health Fellow through the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Prior to coming to UCLA, she served on the faculty at San Francisco State University.

Selected Publications

Sea level rise and flooding of hazardous sites in marginalized communities across the United States (Nature Communications, 2025) 

Historical redlining is associated with fossil fuel power plant siting and present-day inequalities in air pollutant emissions (Nature Energy, 2022)

Racial disparities in climate change related health effects in the United States (Current Environmental Health Reports, 2022)

Advancing California’s Human Right to Water:  Characterizing inequities in drinking water quality among domestic well communities and community water systems (American Journal of Public Health, 2021) 

Flaring from unconventional Oil and Gas Development and Birth Outcomes in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2020)