The School of Public Health this month received two grants totalling $375,000 to support teaching and research into the connection between chemicals in the environment and illness, Dr. Howard H. Hiatt, dean of the School of Public Health, said yesterday.

A $100,000 grant from the Rita Allen Foundation in New York and a $275,000 from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in North Carolina will support a new toxicology unit headed by Dr. Armen H. Tashjian, professor of Toxicology at the School of Public Health.

Multidisciplinary Approach

The money from the Rita Allen Fund will pay the salary of a "young faculty member" working in cancer prevention, Hiatt said.

The grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation will support training and "multidisciplinary" toxicology research, Dr. George H. Hitchings, president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, said yesterday.

"We regard Dr. Tashjian's efforts as groundwork in a multidisciplinary approach to toxicology, and we were very impressed by what he intended to do in the future," Hitchings added.

Hiatt said Tashjian's multidisciplinary approach involves epidemiologists, statisticians, economists, political scientists, and behavioral scientists working together to identify harmful chemicals and overcome their effects.

Tashjian was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Joint

The School of Public Health will start a graduate training in toxicology jointly with the department of Pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Irving H. Goldberg, chairman of the department of Pharmacology, said yesterday.

The unit will offer pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and continuing education training programs in an attempt to alleviate a "shortage of people in the field of toxicology," Hiatt said.

"I'm very optimistic about the program--it will have effects not only on our program here at Harvard but also on the entire field," Hiatt added.