The National Institutes of Health has partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to launch five research initiatives committed to improving health in communities stricken with pollution exposure and social impediments that create health disparities.
The new research centers will analyze a multitude of environmental stressors and social conditions that are detrimental to the health of vulnerable populations. These elements include air and water quality, ground pollution, sub-standard housing and malnutrition.
"More than a decade of NIH research has shown that low-income, minority and tribal communities experience higher levels of environmental pollution in the United States, and that these populations often have poorer health," said Linda Birnbaum, PhD, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Partners from the communities will work with researchers to develop questions, gather study participants, collect data and develop strategies to translate research results in to tangible changes in population health.
Eliseo Perez-Stable, MD, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, said, "This joint effort between the NIH and EPA is an important step in stimulating research to identify how complex interactions between social, natural, biological and built environments influence health of vulnerable populations."
Here are the locations of the five new research cites:
- Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and Boston University School of Public Health
- Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
- University of Arizona in Tucson
- University of New Mexico in Albuquerque
- University of Southern California in Los Angeles