Residents of Kentucky suffer disproportionately from many chronic diseases and exposure to toxics in their environment. Dangerously high rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer in Kentucky have been well documented. Our areas of focus are West Louisville, encompassing six zip codes within the larger Metro area. In West Louisville neighborhoods, 61.1% of residents are black/African Americans and 55% of children under age 18 live in poverty. Our preliminary assessments suggest that residents living near the Lee?s Lane landfill in West Louisville, Rubbertown, a heavily industrialized residential area, and Oakdale, a neighborhood near Churchill Downs, have high in VOC exposures. The Louisville medical community has a long history of bi-directional interactions with active community involvement in health care delivery and research. These interactions date back to the creation of the Marine Hospital in 1823 to treat riverboat workers, continues in the 1970s with partnerships with industries to establish the ongoing surveillance program of workers with hepatic hemeangiosarcoma associated with their exposure to vinyl chloride, and more recently is highlighted by the partnership between Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness along with UofL and other community partners to fight obesity and chronic disease under the CDC Communities Putting Prevention To Work (CPPW) grant and to mitigate the effects of air pollution exposure by planting trees under the Funders? Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities? Partner-for-Places grant. The overarching goal of the CEC is to support community and academic scientists/educators in transdisciplinary research that incorporates best practices in community engagement by facilitating beneficial and bidirectional interactions between residents, industry, policy makers, and Superfund Center interdisciplinary investigators. We will achieve this through the following Specific Aims: 1. Augment community and investigator capacity for transdisciplinary research focused on exposure to Superfund contaminants through facilitating Community Environmental Quality Resource Exchange Sessions (CEQRES) and establishing a Sustainable, Institutionalized Collaborative Framework through the Louisville Superfund Center Community Advisory Board (LSC- CAB). 2. Support and facilitate project- and core-specific community engagement activities 3. Support a community project aimed at mitigating the effects of exposures to Superfund VOCs 4. Assess change in perception and knowledge of community participants and investigators as a result of engaging in specific Superfund Center activities. Through regular public forums and board meetings, support of specific Superfund research projects, and training, community engaged intervention, assessment of community and investigator perceptions and knowledge, and substantive interactions with other project Cores particularly the Research Translation Core (RTC), the CEC will provide content and structural support necessary for ongoing community engaged research aimed at evaluating the health effects of pollutant exposure and reducing exposures to and negative impacts of Superfund toxic emissions.
Residents of Kentucky are disproportionately affected by many chronic diseases and exposure to toxics in their environment. Dangerously high rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer in Kentucky have been well documented. Health disparities by race and class persist across Louisville Metro. Our areas of focus are West Louisville neighborhoods where 61% of the population is black/African American. This area includes both the Lee?s Lane Superfund site, and Rubbertown. A nearby neighborhood, Oakdale, also is a ?hot spot.? All of these areas have excessive exposure to Superfund VOCs. Within the West Louisville neighborhoods, the percentage of children under age 18 who live in poverty is 55% and the rates of deaths attributable to poverty for adults over 25 are 4%-24% higher than in other Louisville Metro neighborhoods. West Louisville is also home to a very high number of industries (located very near residential areas) that are major sources of toxic air emissions, numerous brownfields, and a superfund designated land-fill. In addition, area residents struggle with poor access to greenspace, inadequate transportation, lack of affordable safe housing, and limited access to healthy food options. The CEC goal is to support transdisciplinary research that incorporates best practices in community engagement by facilitating beneficial, bi-directional interactions between residents, industry, policy makers, and Superfund Center interdisciplinary investigators building all stakeholders? capacities to collaboratively understand, reduce exposure to, and address the negative impacts of contaminants, initially focused on VOCs, from Superfund sites and industrial activities in West Louisville. Public Health Relevance: We are beginning to understand that exposure to toxicants can initiate/exacerbate multiple health problems, especially cardiometabolic diseases. Kentuckians are disproportionately affected by many chronic diseases, including obesity, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver disease, etc., which are all aspects of the cardiometabolic syndrome. Certain communities are more highly impacted than others and it is critical to understand why. It is our hypothesis that exposure to toxics, specifically VOCs, initiates/exacerbates these conditions. It is fundamental to our understanding of the effects of these toxics to engage the communities most deeply affected by exposure to these pollutants and to try to mitigate the effects of these exposures. Thus, determining the influence of pollutant exposure on the development/progression of these chronic conditions is vital.
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