The Environmental Factor – March 2020: Turning research into real-world benefits, one community at a time

Nearly 200 individuals participating in the NIEHS Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) met from 12-13 February to celebrate the program’s first 10 years and shape its vision for the next decade. PEPH 2020: Past, Present, and Future has attracted researchers, health advocates, science reporters, educators, policy experts and public health officials to the Durham Convention Center in Durham, North Carolina.

PEPH helps turn scientific discovery into action by promoting community engagement and knowledge sharing with diverse stakeholders so that they can address environmental health challenges ranging from air pollution to adolescent vaping. Achieving this goal requires academics, healthcare and public health professionals, residents and others to work together and respect the skills each brings to a particular project, according to PEPH Director Liam O’Fallon.

“The NIEHS has had a long commitment to scientific translation,” said O’Fallon, who noted that the origins of PEPH date back to brainstorming sessions in the late 1990s. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

A vibrant idea

“In about 2007, we saw that the NIEHS had about 10 or 12 different programs doing similar things, whether that included our core environmental health sciences centers, a breast cancer program, a worker training program, a research Superfund program, environmental justice work, or Science education and training programs O’Fallon said.

“We had a lot, but we didn’t put these different grant programs together to share their collective knowledge,” he added. So O’Fallon worked with a team to help grant recipients share ideas across disciplines and increase community collaboration. The network held its first meeting in 2010.

Science teaches education and awareness

“Your work is an integral part of our strategic plan,” Rick Woichick, acting director of the National Toxicology Program and the NIEHS told the public. He explained that one of the main themes of this plan, the promotion of translation – data to knowledge to action, aligns with PEPH. “It’s not just about getting interesting science published in top-level journals, but also about improving public health and improving people’s lives,” Woyschek said.

Woychik responded to participants’ comments and suggestions during the hearing. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

PEPH highlights grantees who are making real-world impacts. Examples include development educational activities(https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/translational/peph/grantee-highlights/2015/index.cfm#a751237) To teach young students how to avoid harmful substances such as lead and Efforts to help pediatricians(https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/translational/peph/grantee-highlights/2019/index.cfm#a869733) Better understand the links between the environment and children’s health. O’Fallon noted other ways in which PEPH shares information with researchers and the public.

• Monthly newsletter.
• Environmental Health Conversation Podcast Series.
• Resource Center for Grantees.
• Webinars.
• Twitter And the LinkedIn pages.

Increase knowledge and reduce inequalities

Workshops, panel discussions, and poster presentations stimulated ideas and debate, provided networking opportunities, and showcased the breadth of PEPH initiatives.

Some participants discussed working to increase scientific knowledge and help disadvantaged communities use low-cost pollution monitoring technology. Others described their efforts to reduce disparities in environmental health. More than 50 stickers have been shared in the sticker session.

Tommy Rock, Ph.D., of Northern Arizona University, a NIEHS grantee, discussed his study of uranium contamination near Navajo communities. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

Planning for the next ten years

Even as attendees celebrated progress, they also brainstormed opportunities for improvement. In plenary and subgroup sessions, they addressed issues such as how to study new industrial chemicals, how to report potential health risks without causing undue alarm, and how to forge more community partnerships.

“The knowledge a community has is just as important as the knowledge you have as a researcher,” said Beverly Watkins, Ph.D., of New York University. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

Jane Hoppen, Sc.D.D., of NCSU, presented a session on exposure science that drew attention to exposure, which is an acronym for all environmental exposures a person experiences (see podcast in sidebar). Participants agreed that more research is needed in this area.

Hoppin, standing, is deputy director of the NIEHS-funded Center for Human Health and the Environment at NCSU. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

Other ideas from the two-day meeting include the following.

• Use the knowledge of anthropologists, urban planners, industry experts, and more.
• Better training of community organizations on research and researchers on community engagement.
• Use economic studies to show the costs of health outcomes from exposure to toxic agents.
• Expanding environmental health education in the medical school.
• Increased use of social media to share basic information with the public.

“I think we are unique among the National Institutes of Health [National Institutes of Health] institutes to give a high priority to translation, and this program is really helping us get there,” Acting NIEHS Deputy Director Gwen Coleman, PhD, told the audience.

“PEPH couldn’t have had a better leader,” Coleman said, referring to O’Fallon. (Photo courtesy of Steve McCaw)

“This network comes alive. It’s a living program – it’s changing due to the emergence of environmental concerns.

(Jesse Saffron, JD, is a writer and technical editor in the NIEHS Office of Communications and Public Communications.)

from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/the-environmental-factor-march-2020-turning-research-into-real-world-benefits-one-community-at-a-time/