Environmental Health

Dr. Rawan Araj

Chairperson for the Specialty Committee of Environmental Health

Rawan Araj is one of IAPH Program Leads and the co-chair of the Environmental Health Diploma. She holds a Master of Public Health with a focus on Occupational Health and Environmental Epidemiology from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (UMich), and a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). In the past, she conducted research on Crohn’s Disease as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research (HHMI) Fellow at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR). She was a trainee of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in USA and an intern at Songkhla Cancer Registry in Thailand. Her areas of expertise are Biology and Environmental Epidemiology.

Specialty Committees Members

Dr. Yaser Issa

Dr. Yaser Y. Issa is the Head of the Environmental Health Unit at the Hebron Public Health Directorate, Ministry of Health, Palestine, a position he has held since 2004. He earned his Ph.D. in International Health from the University of Oslo, Norway (2013), with a focus on Public Health, Environmental Health, and Occupational Epidemiology. He also holds an M.Phil. in International and Community Health from the same university (2000). Dr. Issa has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and abstracts published in prestigious international journals, including Human Reproduction, Environmental Health, The Lancet, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Environmental Quality Management, and the International Journal of Environmental Health and Toxicology. He is also the contributing author of the chapter titled “Environmental and Social Determinants of Health in Palestine” in the Handbook of Healthcare in the Arab World.

He serves on the editorial and review boards of several scientific journals, such as BMC Public Health, BMC Research Notes, the Pan African Medical Journal, and Frontiers. Dr. Issa actively participates in local, regional, and international conferences and workshops. His primary research interests include public health, environmental health, and occupational epidemiology, particularly focusing on the impact of environmental and occupational exposures on public and reproductive health. In addition to his work at the Ministry, he is a part-time Assistant Professor at Hebron University (since 2003), Palestine Polytechnic University (since 2016), and Al-Quds Open University (since 2000), as well as at the Arab Academy in Denmark. He currently teaches Epidemiology and Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine at Hebron University and has supervised and examined numerous undergraduate and postgraduate research projects.

Dr. Issa is an active member of various health-related professional societies and institutions. He is also a member of the Ministerial Technical Committee for the National Center for Occupational Health, Safety, and Environmental Protection, and serves on the Steering Committee for Medical Waste Treatment and Safe Disposal in the southern West Bank (Hebron and Bethlehem). In 2021, he was appointed as the Focal Point for Climate Change and Health at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization and became a member of the WHO’s ATACH (Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health).