In 1909, a proposal from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University called for the creation of an institute of public health and preventative medicine. That proposal urged a "new public health" that would integrate medical and social sciences with biostatistics and sanitary engineering. In 1922, the DeLamar Institute of Public Health was created in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. This Institute became the School of Public Health in 1945.

            Since its inception, the School of Public Health has retained an emphasis on the role of environment in health as reflected originally in the inclusion of sanitary engineering as a key component. In 1960, the School officially organized a Division of Environmental Sciences under the leadership of Dr. Leonard Goldwater, an expert on the clinical toxicology of mercury, and the Division established a Dr.P.H. program in addition to its M.P.H. program. With the retirement from Columbia of Dr. Goldwater in 1968, the leadership of the Division passed to Dr. Granville Sewell, a civil and sanitary engineer with expertise in the provision of clean drinking water and sanitation systems particularly in underdeveloped countries. In 1976, Dr. I. Bernard Weinstein, Frode Jensen Professor of Medicine, Professor of Genetics and Development and Director of the Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Center, was named the new Head of the Division. Under Dr. Weinstein, the Division grew with the addition of new faculty in the area of environmental carcinogenesis and pioneered the new field of molecular epidemiology. In 1991, Dr. Weinstein stepped down, and Dr. Joseph Graziano, a pharmacologist/ toxicologist with expertise in the heath effects of lead, was named the new Head of the Division. Dr. Graziano continued the growth of the Division with the addition of new areas of emphasis in air pollution and environmental respiratory diseases and in heavy metal toxicology and environmental neuro-degenerative diseases. Under Dr. Graziano, the Division became the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the newly named Mailman School of Public Health. The Department added several new dimensions, including: the NIEHS-funded Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan, with an emphasis on cancer, respiratory diseases, and neuro-degenerative diseases in the urban environment; the NIEHS/EPA-funded Columbia Children's Center for Environmental Health, with an emphasis on the environmental causes of childhood cancer, respiratory diseases, and neuro-developmental disorders; the Columbia Superfund Basic Science Research Program, with an emphasis on the health hazards of arsenic in drinking water; and a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Environmental Health Sciences. In 2002, Dr. Graziano stepped down, and Dr. Paul Brandt-Rauf, a physician with expertise in occupational/environmental medicine and environmental carcinogenesis, was named the new Chair of the Department. Since then, the Columbia Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan and the Columbia Children's Center for Environmental Health have both received renewed funding support for the next five years, and the areas of interest of the Department have continued to expand, particularly through increased participation in the Columbia Earth Institute, a University-wide, collaborative, inter-disciplinary effort.