The development of a Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) is a vital next step in the evolution of the Center for Children's Environmental Health Research and our Community-University partnership. The mission of the proposed Center COTC is to, in collaboration with partners and community members, communicate Center findings, analyze priority topics, and translate such findings into sustainable action promoting the health and well-being of children. The goal of this collaborative process is to increase community ownership of study results, communicate study results clearly, and mobilize groups toward action that will improve the health status of community members. To achieve these ends, we propose an integrated COTC, which includes two complementary core approaches. The first core applies a Community-based Participatory Research orientation to develop the capacity of our community to disseminate and translate study findings. For this, we will establish a Farmworker Community Council and a Grower Council to partner with the Center in COTC planning and activities; prepare annual reports and hold community forums; and pilot a Community Health Outreach Worker Program. The second core approach is designed to disseminate findings and tailored children's environmental health risk prevention messages, with a particular focus on the issues affecting low-income Latinos and farmworkers, at multiple levels: individual, group, organizational, and policy. The initiatives of this second core will be conducted in partnership with service providers, child care providers, the State Health Department, children's environmental health advocacy organizations, and policy makers. Through this comprehensive, community-based, multilevel COTC core, we aim not only to inform our community about study results, but also to translate findings into sustainable change in the social and environmental contexts influencing health and well-being for children in our immediate and broader communities. On a broader scale, we aim to increase awareness of children's environmental health issues at the County, State and National level.
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