Research Centers

Superfund Basic Research Program at Duke University: Education and Outreach Core

The Duke University Superfund Basic Research Program Outreach Core seeks to build North Carolina's technical capacity to identify, evaluate, and interpret potential environmental exposures across the state. The Outreach Core uses sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial analysis to develop and disseminate outreach programs with a particular emphasis on children's environmental health. Specific aims for the Outreach Core include:

• Extending dissemination of childhood lead exposure risk models to new areas throughout North Carolina.
  Providing outreach and education efforts focused on home environmental health risks in low-income Latino households, with a particular emphasis on Hispanic farm workers.
• Providing air toxics modeling and outreach work focused on disparate exposure patterns in select North Carolina counties.
• Developing new statewide modeling of mercury contamination risk for use by community groups, and state and county health and environmental officials.

The Outreach Core is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Center for Comparative Biology of Vulnerable Populations: Community Outreach and Education Program

The Center for Comparative Biology of Vulnerable Populations: Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP)'s overall mission is to provide communities with information that allows them to create preventive (rather than mitigative) environmental interventions that protect children before they become sick. The COEP promotes environmental health outreach and education directed to families with children, enhances the capacity of disadvantaged communities to understand threats posed by environmental contaminants, and provides a bridge between campus research and community action. Local health departments, community organizations, and health care providers act as important mechanisms for dissemination to the primary target audience - families with children. The COEP focuses on the following, more specific goals:

• Partnering with community organizations, health care providers, and local health departments to inventory community needs and interests with respect to children’s environmental health.
• Partnering with community organizations, health care providers, and local health departments to inform community members about preventing exposures to environmental health hazards, especially as they relate to pulmonary and neurodevelopment health.
• Working with local health departments to incorporate cost-effective advanced technologies into the daily operations of environmental management, community outreach, and public education, with a particular emphasis on families with children.
• Working in partnership with health care practices to incorporate consideration of environmental factors in health care management.
• Partnering with Duke University investigators to facilitate bi-directional exchanges between the community and the university.

The COEP seeks to bridge the gap between campus research and community action by working directly with affected populations and by using research expertise to service those most vulnerable in our communities.

The COEP is funded by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Southern Center for Environmentally-Driven Disparities in Birth Outcomes: Community Outreach and Translation Core

The central objective of the Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) is to create, implement, and assess strategies to translate and apply the findings of the Southern Center on Environmentally-Driven Disparities in Birth Outcomes (SCEDDBO) into relevant information for women of childbearing age, families, community groups, policy makers, and health care professionals.

The Community Outreach and Translation Core:

• conducts environmental health outreach and education directed at low income and minority women and their children
• enhances the capacity of disadvantaged communities to understand threats posed by environmental contaminants
• provides a bridge between campus research, communities, and policy makers

The Community Outreach and Translation Core's activities utilize center expertise to promote the development of preventive outreach and education with the goal of enhancing the lives of those most vulnerable in our communities. Expected Results: The Southern Center on Environmentally-Driven Disparities in Birth Outcomes will produce important new knowledge to disentangle the complex etiology of birth outcomes. This new knowledge will point the way to effective interventions to achieve better pregnancy outcomes among all population groups.