The Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) was established in 1967 at Oregon State University (OSU) with funding by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the institutes comprising the National Institutes of Health. (NIEHS grant #P30 ES000210).

The OSU Environmental Health Sciences Center studies how people can best protect themselves from environmental stress and toxicants by understanding sources of exposure and determining how to maintain natural defenses, which diminish as people age, to such stresses.