The aim of this program is to continue to build the capacity of environmental and occupational health research institutes in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova to investigate, control, and prevent environmental and occupational health problems through collaborative research and training between these institutes and the University of Illinois at Chicago and its U.S. academic and governmental partners. Our specific objectives over the 5-year term of the grant are to: (1) Train up to 25 FSU scientists from our partner institutions in state-of-the art research methodologies and in the responsible conduct of research through U.S.-based short-term and intermediate length training;(2) Train more than 500 FSU scientists in environmental and occupational health exposure assessment, epidemiologic research design, and intervention research by co-sponsoring 9 in-country conferences (2 per year) and workshops in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Moldova;(3) Continue to develop and strengthen occupational and environmental health research institutes (centers of research excellence) in our partner countries by training their faculty (especially at the assistant and associate professor level), providing them with research tools, and supporting their priority research areas by partnering with them on collaborative research programs;(4) Continue and complete our long-term collaborative research programs on: children's environmental health in Ukraine, focusing on asthma, obesity, and puberty;coal mine safety and health in Ukraine;occupational and environmental exposure to dioxins in Ufa;and effects of Chernobyl radiation exposure in Belarus and Ukraine;(5) Develop a new collaborative research program on exposure assessment of persistent organic pollutants in Russia and radon exposure and lung cancer in Ukraine;(6) Develop a new collaborative """"""""Health in the Arts"""""""" research and training program with the Northwest Public Health Research Centre in St. Petersburg;(7) Continue to build the capacity of new public health training programs in Ukraine and Russia through faculty development and exchange and curriculum development in partnership with the Association of Schools of Public Health of the European Region;(8) Initiate new capacity-building efforts to support the development of public health training programs in Moldova and Belarus;(9) Continue to support the publication of Environment and Health, the major Ukrainian, Russian, and English language environmental health journal in Ukraine published by the Ukrainian Institute for Hygiene and Medical Ecology and the publication of the Russian language Informational Bulletin on Occupational Health, a bibliography of recent Russian and international publications in the field of occupational health;(10) Impact the development of public policy in environmental and occupational health in our partner countries;(11) Develop environmental and occupational health resource centers in Kyiv and Moscow.
