Existing programs established independently by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) have fostered collaboration across disciplines and enabled multidisciplinary teams of community and academic experts from diverse backgrounds to conduct research on health disparities and environmental health disparities. These collaborative programs have explored crucial areas that affect health-disparate communities by including research linking environmental, biological, and non-biological determinants of health, and by using approaches such as community-based participatory research (CBPR) and community-engagement, education and training, and information dissemination as key elements of the Centers.
Building on the strengths of these efforts, EPA, NIEHS, NIMHD, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) are issuing a joint research program, “Centers of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research” (EHD Research Centers), to stimulate basic and applied research in this area. Outcomes of this research are expected to promote innovative approaches to mitigate environmentally driven health disparities and improved access to healthy environments for vulnerable populations. The proposed EHD Research Centers will support research efforts, mentoring, capacity building, and research translation and information dissemination. In addition, the EHD Centers will support an optional pilot project program designed to further encourage and sustain active participation of EHD Center partners in the full range of the EHD center activities by providing sub-awards to partner organizations during years 2 through 4. Pilot projects may be used to seed emerging research areas, explore new methodologies or approaches, or develop new regional partnerships and collaborations that could evolve into independently funded research and/or demonstration projects.
NIEHS, NIMHD, NICHD, and EPA are seeking research that proposes multidisciplinary research activities that will generate innovative approaches to mitigate environmentally driven health disparities and could improve access to healthy and sustainable environments for vulnerable populations. This initiative is expected to achieve goals and objectives in the following areas:
- Research
- Capacity and Mentoring
- Communication and Translation