Photo of Paloma Beamer
Paloma Beamer
Associate Professor, American Indian Studies-GIDP
Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
Associate Professor, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Associate Professor, Public Health
Primary Department
Community Environment & Policy
Department Affiliations
Community Environment & Policy
BIO5 Institute
(520) 626-0006
pbeamer@email.arizona.edu
Research Interest
Paloma I. Beamer, Ph.D., joined the College of Public Health in 2007 as an assistant professor in Environmental Health Sciences. The central motivation behind her research is in the development of tools that can help provide more robust exposure and dose estimates and improve the demonstration of a relationship between measured environmental concentrations and resulting health effects, particularly amongst children and underserved populations. Currently Dr. Beamer is using both computer modeling and laboratory techniques in her research. She is currently using GIS techniques to assess the risk of wheezing from exposure to traffic pollutants in early childhood. As an expert in micro-activity patterns she is examining the activity patterns of older children and utilizing them to estimate dust ingestion. Dr. Beamer has built a laboratory to characterize exposure and risk of water-borne contaminants. Currently she is using this laboratory to measure the concentration of tricholoethylene in breastmilk and water contaminants in Nogales. Dr. Beamer is also involved field sampling and exposure modeling projects aimed at understanding children's exposures to pesticides in agricultural communities and metals near hazardous waste sites. Dr. Beamer has served as Academic Councilor on the Board of the International Society of Exposure Science. She has been a long time member of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. She has received the "Scientific Technological Achievement Award" from US EPA, "Mentored Quantitative Research Development Award" from NIH, and the "40 under 40" Award from the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Publications

Gerba, C. P., Koenig, D. W., Sifuentes, L. Y., Plotkin, K. R., Beamer, P. -., & Reynolds, K. A. (2014). The Healthy Workplace Project: Reduced Viral Exposure in an Office Setting. Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health.
Madera-Garcia, V., Beamer, P., Werner, J. D., & Verhougstraete, M. (2018). Legionella is a Miner issue. International Journal of Mining Science and Technology.
Beamer, P., Beamer, P., Lothrop, N. Z., Lothrop, N. Z., Stern, D., Stern, D., Billheimer, D. D., Billheimer, D. D., Wright, A., Wright, A., Martinez, F., & Martinez, F. (2015). Increased wheezing risk associated with diesel exposure among children of younger mothers. European Respiratory Journal, 46(3), 853-855. doi:10.1183/09031936.00227214
BIO5 Collaborators
Paloma Beamer, Dean Billheimer
Ramirez-Andreotta, M. D., Green Brody, J., Lothrop, N. Z., Loh, M. M., Beamer, P., & Brown, P. (2016). Improving Environmental Health Literacy and Justice through Environmental Exposure Results Communication. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Beamer, P. (2013). Hazard-ranking of agricultural pesticides for chronic health effects in Yuma County, Arizona. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, 463, 35-41.

With thousands of pesticides registered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, it not feasible to sample for all pesticides applied in agricultural communities. Hazard-ranking pesticides based on use, toxicity, and exposure potential can help prioritize community-specific pesticide hazards. This study applied hazard-ranking schemes for cancer, endocrine disruption, and reproductive/developmental toxicity in Yuma County, Arizona. An existing cancer hazard-ranking scheme was modified, and novel schemes for endocrine disruption and reproductive/developmental toxicity were developed to rank pesticide hazards. The hazard-ranking schemes accounted for pesticide use, toxicity, and exposure potential based on chemical properties of each pesticide. Pesticides were ranked as hazards with respect to each health effect, as well as overall chronic health effects. The highest hazard-ranked pesticides for overall chronic health effects were maneb, metam-sodium, trifluralin, pronamide, and bifenthrin. The relative pesticide rankings were unique for each health effect. The highest hazard-ranked pesticides differed from those most heavily applied, as well as from those previously detected in Yuma homes over a decade ago. The most hazardous pesticides for cancer in Yuma County, Arizona were also different from a previous hazard-ranking applied in California. Hazard-ranking schemes that take into account pesticide use, toxicity, and exposure potential can help prioritize pesticides of greatest health risk in agricultural communities. This study is the first to provide pesticide hazard-rankings for endocrine disruption and reproductive/developmental toxicity based on use, toxicity, and exposure potential. These hazard-ranking schemes can be applied to other agricultural communities for prioritizing community-specific pesticide hazards to target decreasing health risk. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.