The proposed environmental health core expands the scope of the Coordinating Center of Excellence in the Social Promotion of Health Equity in Research, Research Education and Training, and Community Engagement and Outreach (CCE-SPHERE), an NIMHD-funded Center of Excellence (CoE) housed in the Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities (IPEHD), at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health. It will build upon the CoE expertise in the engagement of health disparity populations, development of community-university health research partnerships, understanding the role that social determinants of health play in driving health disparities including environmental health disparities, and training minority investigators from these health disparity populations in biomedical research. With continued support from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities, we propose to build upon the strengths of our collaborative efforts to meaningfully contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of environmental factors and health disparities in order to achieve health equity. The new emphasis of the CCE-SPHERE will expand the CoE's capacity to engage communities of color impacted by health disparities with a focus on environmental justice and environmental health disparity issues within the State of South Carolina. The current application takes resident expertise in environmental, social and behavioral science at USC-IPEHD and University of Maryland (UMD) and an expansive community network to conduct environmental, community-based participatory and translational research focused on addressing environmental stressors in South Carolina. As part of this Environmental Health Core, we plan to: 1) Build a program to assess environmental health disparities in the state through data collected by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program;2) Assess community perception of environmental determinants of cancer risk and disparities in rural and urban communities in South Carolina;and 3) Engage and train members of community-based organizations that represent environmental justice communities and environmental health disparity populations in the use of the block assessment methodology to help stakeholders identify ecological stressors and intervene to address disparities in burden, exposure, and health.
Our Environmental Health Core of the Coordinating Center of Excellence in the Social Promotion of Health Equity Research, Education and Community Engagement (CCE-SPHERE) seeks to engage in a community driven process to facilitate the identification of sustainable community solutions to environmental injustice and environmental health disparities while building upon existing community assets and successes in the state of South Carolina. The complex circumstances of environmental health disparities are rooted in the intersection of myriad factors, including exposure to environmental hazards and pollution, disparities in the built environment, access to salutogenic resources, and other environmental determinants as reflected in the CSHD model for the Center overall. The proposed project will utilize a community-based participatory process to address state-wide environmental health disparities with a focus on cancer, asthma, heart disease, and diabetes.
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