Environmental Health Disparities Centers Renewal

Council Date: February 2, 2024

Objective

To support multidisciplinary research, research capacity building, and community-engaged approaches to understand and address environmental health disparities (EHD).

Download the full concept paper

Description of Initiative

The Environmental Health Disparities Centers renewal supports:

• Multidisciplinary, multilevel research (i.e., observational, interventional, implementation)
• Research capacity building
• Training of early-stage investigators
• Community-engaged approaches to document and mitigate EHDs among populations experiencing health disparities with an emphasis on environmental justice (EJ) action

Potential Research Areas of Focus and Interventions:

• Develop models to evaluate the interaction or cumulative risks of various environmental exposures (e.g., chemical, physical, and/or biological stressors) with different SDOHs on chronic diseases.
• Examine drivers for differential exposures (i.e., social, built, and physical environment) to better understand how environmental contributions disproportionately impact health among populations with multiple marginalized statuses.
• Implementation research with community partners to develop and test strategies to promote the adoption, integration, uptake, scale-up, and spread of evidence-based/informed interventions for reducing or preventing harmful environmental exposures.
• Multilevel EHD interventions incorporating Indigenous Knowledges to promote well-being, resilience, and connection of American Indian or Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander populations to the land and waters.
• Develop and test EJ-focused interventions, addressing upstream SDOH among immigrant communities.
• Develop and test models to understand community assets, environmental exposures, resiliency, and chronic disease risks to help communities recover from extreme weather events or heat exposure to bolster health.
• Structural interventions to prevent and address long-term EHDs and factors related to maternal and child health disparities across the life course.
• Systems level (i.e., healthcare, workplaces, or schools or policies) interventions to address place-based disparities in communities disproportionately affected by environmental exposures exacerbated by climate change.
• Examine the impacts of resource extraction (e.g., unconventional oil and gas development, hydraulic fracking, logging, mining) on water or air quality exposures leading to health disparities among local Tribal and low-income, rural communities.

Page published March 15, 2024