Grantee Research Project Results
2012 Progress Report: Environmental Health Disparities Research Core
EPA Grant Number: NIMHD001Title: Environmental Health Disparities Research Core
Investigators: Boutin-Foster, Carla , Watkins, Beverly , Reyes, Damaris , Charlson, Mary
Current Investigators: Boutin-Foster, Carla , Watkins, Beverly , Reyes, Damaris , Olden, Ken , Charlson, Mary
Institution: Weill Cornell Medical College , Cornell University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: August 1, 2012 through July 31, 2014
Project Period Covered by this Report: March 23, 2012 through September 13,2012
Project Amount: $860,901
RFA: Transdisciplinary Networks of Excellence on the Environment and Health Disparities (2012) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice , Human Health
Objective:
Following a true community-based participatory research model, community stakeholders are not only participants in the EH Core, but also are researchers who engage in all phases of research proposal development, planning, design, implementation, analysis and dissemination. The primary aim of the Environmental Health Disparities Research Core (EH Core) is to give CEDREC the capacity to collaboratively examine environmental factors that drive health disparities and develop innovative and transdisciplinary solutions. As outlined in the revision application, the specific programmatic aims of the Environmental Core are being articulated within the four existing cores of CEDREC and include:
- Collaboratively prioritizing key areas of environmental disparities and identifying optimal ways to intervene through research or policy. To accomplish this aim, we will analyze 240 surveys with community stakeholders.
- Expanding opportunities for developing careers in environmental health research by broadening the health disparities track of the established Master of Science Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research to include an environmental health disparities seminar series taught jointly by members of the Community Steering Committee and Scientific Steering Committee.
- Disseminating key findings to stakeholders by partnering with the CSC in the dissemination of findings via webinars, town hall meetings, and peer-reviewed manuscripts.
- Building community partner capacity through the development of community health profiles that will serve as a resource for collaborators.
Progress Summary:
We have been productive and actively pursuing our agenda to build research infrastructure to elucidate environmental health disparities. We have a R01 pending review at NIMHD (PI, Watkins). We also submitted a panel presentation to the NIMHD Health Disparities summit with our CSC partners as presenters (Watkins). We are currently working on two papers for submission to the AJPH special issue on human subjects research and ethics that will be co-authored by members of the CSC (Watkins, Olden, Green, Reyes; and Watkins, Green, Reyes). A brief overview of our progress toward achieving our specific aims follows:
1) Collaboratively prioritizing key areas of environmental disparities and identifying optimal ways to intervene through research and/or policy.
Community dialogues and community surveys: In the revision application, we planned to conduct two community dialogues in each of the four boroughs served by the CSC partners beginning in April. Instead, we decided to first conduct community surveys as the CSC members preferred to have this data analyzed prior to conducting dialogues. Community survey collection began in May with a series of introductory community meetings to inform local residents of the project. From June thru August, 38 community surveys were conducted with community stakeholders in Chinatown and the South Bronx. Based upon these data, we revised the survey and decided to translate the instrument into Chinese and Spanish. Dr. Watkins is currently training Spanish and Chinese speaking survey administrators who will conduct surveys in the Lower East Side and Brooklyn as well as conduct Chinese language surveys in Chinatown, and Spanish language surveys in South Bronx.
Training of CSC to administer surveys: As outlined in the revision application, environmental public health community stewards from each of the five CSC communities are undergoing HIPAA and IRB training under Dr. Watkins' guidance. To date, 23 members of our partner CBOs have been HIPPA and IRB certified.
2) Expanding opportunities for developing careers in environmental health research by broadening the health disparities track of an established Master of Science Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research to include a new environmental health disparities research seminar series.
- An environmental health disparities research seminar series has been added. It will consist of 5 applied community partner led seminars focused on their current local EJ work [1) YMPJ: Land Use and Transportation Justice; 2) MOM: Social Justice; 3) FUREE: Food Justice; 4) GOLES: Housing Justice; 5) CPA: Economic Justice]; three didactic scientific partner led seminars focused on social and environmental determinants of health [1) Watkins: Epigenetics; 2) Weitzman: Children's Environmental Health; 3) McBride: Soil Contaminants]; and one methods seminar on the use of GIS to examine environmental determinants of health.
- The seminar series will begin in August 2012 when the new cohort of students arrive, as outlined in the revision application with a seminar on Environmental Justice.
3) Disseminating key findings to stakeholders in partnership with the CSC via webinars, town hall meetings, and peer-reviewed manuscripts.
- We have developed a protocol for manuscript authorship with the CSC.
- As indicated above, the Administrative Core has organized and integrated topics on environmental health, environmental justice, and environmental policy into the existing schedule of CEDREC health disparities lectures.
4) Building community partner capacity through the development of community health profiles that will serve as a resource for collaborators.
- We hired a team of 5 students from the Pratt Institute to develop environmental health community profiles for each community using publicly available data sets. This team, led by Michael Catalano, the Environmental Core research assistant, completed the profiles in July.
- In August, the CSC will hold its second web-based conference to discuss the community profiles and surveys.
- In September, Michael Catalano and the Pratt team will present the community profiles to each community steering committee member.
Future Activities:
We will continue to adhere to the original plans and timeline. During the past 6 months, we created a comprehensive environmental public health database for each community partner catchment area that will be used to track changes over time, while simultaneously assessing environmental conditions in the local community. We also modified and adapted validated EPH community survey and assessment instruments from the Community Environmental Health Assessment Toolbox for New Mexico, and a neighborhood environment measure to create a community survey.
We collected secondary data on Socioeconomic and demographic indicators, including ethnicity, income levels, housing, vital statistics, census and employment data; Condition of the environment, both natural and built: indoor and outdoor air quality, surface and ground water quality, food safety, contamination of soils, and placement of noxious land uses and sites; Environmental factors contributing to the local environmental health risk including emissions from vehicles, industry, such as dry cleaners, and power plants; use of pesticides, waste removal and disposal; Availability of health care services (outreach and services by agency, clinic, hospital, first responders); Ecological data on land use changes and flooding risk related to climate change.
We used these data to create community profiles for each member organization in the Community Steering Committee, using maps available from local, state and federal agencies and those generated by a computerized geographic information system, GIS, to raise awareness of EPH issues and to solicit public input on specific aspects of EH problems in each community.
As outlined in the revision application, human subject data collection is underway. We anticipate survey completion by October 2012, at which time we will conduct the community dialogues. The next annual meeting will take place in November 2012.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Air, access, alternatives, ambient air, atmosphere, biology, built environment, carcinogen, chemicals, collaborative research, community-academic partnerships, community-based participatory research, cumulative effects, decision making, diet, drinking water, ecological effects, epidemiology, effects, ethnic groups, environmentally conscious manufacturing, genetics, health effects, heavy metals, mobile sources, nutrition, particulates, population, public good, psychology, race, risk, risk assessment, sensitive populations, socio-economic, sociological, stressor, susceptibility, toxins, toxic substances, urban planning, vulnerability, waterProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.