PROJECT NARRATIVE:
This collaborative pilot project examines how environmental and infrastructural conditions, including access to safe and stable housing, reliable utilities, water, heating and cooling, may contribute to vulnerability to adverse health outcomes, including drug-related harm. The project brings together perspectives from environmental justice, psychology, public health, and forensic toxicology to explore how structural and environmental conditions intersect with health vulnerability, stress, stigma, and perceptions of individual versus societal responsibility. We organized an Environmental Justice Panel to promote discussion of environmental inequities, health, and related social and structural factors. We have also consulted professionals with relevant expertise to inform the development of the pilot questionnaire, which focuses on housing conditions and access to essential resources, including water, electricity, heating, cooling, and stable housing, as well as perceived stress associated with these conditions. Data generated through the pilot will be used to assess feasibility, refine the questionnaire and interdisciplinary methodology, and inform the development of a larger externally funded study examining environmental justice, health vulnerability, and drug-related harm.
Assistant Professor Ana Pego stands at a podium be presenting a slide for the RiskScape project
PROJECT LEADS:
Ana Pego is an Assistant Professor of Forensic Toxicology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice since 2022. In 2025, together with Pamela LiVecchi, she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Prize. Her research includes the development of analytical methods to identify and quantify drugs of abuse in di^erent biological matrices. Her focus is using hair analysis for the detection of drugs including new psychoactive substances (NPS) as well as hair-based biomarkers (e.g., PFAS) to assess cumulative environmental exposure. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches that bridge laboratory science, public health, and social context.
Pamela LiVecchi is a full-time Lecturer at John Jay College, where she has taught for the past 15 years, and was a recent recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Prize. Pamela’s academic work focuses on the socio-political aspects to psychotherapy as well as liberatory approaches to teaching. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist, providing psychotherapy to children and adults, as well as forensic evaluations related to immigration. Pamela has additional experience within correctional, health, and community settings.
