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Community Partnerships
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- Columbia University — West Harlem, New York City; Poland; China
- Duke University— Durham, North Carolina
- Harvard University — Tar Creek, Oklahoma
- Johns Hopkins University — Baltimore, Maryland
- Mount Sinai School of Medicine — East Harlem, New York City
- University of California at Berkeley — Salinas Valley, California
- University of California at Davis — Autistic children in Northern California
- University of Cincinnati — Cincinnati, Ohio
- University of Illinois — Laotian and Hmong population in Green Bay, Wisconsin
- University of Iowa — Farming communities near Iowa City
- University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey — Autistic children in the Northeast and their families
- University of Michigan — Southwestern and East Detroit, Michigan
- University of Southern California/University of California at Los Angeles — Southern California
- University of Washington — Yakima Valley, Washington State
Community partnerships are an integral part of the Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. The academic research community has recognized the complex issues that affect children’s health, and have suggested greater community involvement in determining research priorities and interventions. The Centers are developing innovative ways to investigate the role of environmental stressors in important childhood disorders such as asthma, autism and learning disabilities as well as finding effective strategies to reduce the risks from these exposures. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) incorporates partnerships between academic, health services, public health, and community-based organizations.
The Children’s Centers apply CBPR to understand and prevent children’s exposure to environmental hazards and health disparities. Each of the Centers includes a CBPR project, and each Center has a Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) which works in collaboration with the investigators, other Cores in each Center and a community advisory board to translate scientific findings into information for the public, policymakers and clinical professionals that can be used to protect children’s health.
For more information, the following publication describes the major benefits of using the CBPR approach, presents the experiences of six of the Children’s Centers, and provides lessons learned and recommendations for establishing and maintaining CBPR partnerships.
Israel BA, Parker EA, Rowe Z, Salvatore A, Minkler M, Lopez J, Butz A, Mosley A, Coates L, Lambert G, Potito PA, Brenner B, Rivera M, Romero H, Thompson B, Coronado G, Halstead S. Community-based participatory research: lessons learned from the Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Oct;113(10):1463-71.
In collaboration with its Community
Advisory Board, the priority for the Columbia Center for Children’s
Environmental Health has been communication of study findings back to the
communities in which the New York City study cohort of mothers and children
reside, in ways that are meaningful and useful in daily life. The
CCCEH collaborates with community organizations advocating for increased
environmental justice in poorer neighborhoods located in northern Manhattan
and the South Bronx. The coalition of eight direct service and environmental
health advocacy organizations ensures that results from the scientific
research are delivered to these communities in ways that are meaningful
and usable in improving daily environmental health at home and in the larger
neighborhood.
Community organizations working with the Columbia Center include:
Alianza Dominicana 
Best Beginnings
For A Better Bronx
Harlem Dowling - West
Side
Heart
of Harlem
New York City
Department of Education
Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation
Northern
Manhattan Perinatal Partnership
Nos Quedamos/We Stay
St.
Mary's Episcopal Church
West Harlem Environmental Action (WE
ACT)
The community health education campaign, Healthy
Home Healthy Child (HHHC) ,
was developed by the Columbia Children's Center to share health information and
prevention methods for air pollution, cigarette smoke, drugs & alcohol, garbage
management, lead poisoning, nutrition and pesticides. The HHHC campaign has served
to heighten awareness in the local community regarding health risks of environmental
exposures and preventive behaviors to reduce exposures in households.
The Center has produced a series of newsletters for the Mothers and Newborns Study and the HHHC campaign with important information for parents about how to prevent children from being exposed to harmful substances including mercury and some types of pesticides. These newsletters include tips on how to reduce exposure, useful resources, and other important health information.
Mothers and Newborns Study: Protecting Your Children
from Mercury – What
You Can Do – Winter, 2007 (PDF) (4 pp., 392K)
Mothers and Newborns Study: Protecting Your
Children from Pesticides – What
You Can Do – Spring, 2007 (PDF) (4 pp., 312K)
The HHHC campaign has developed other written materials ("tip sheets") on topics including:
"Healthy
Home Healthy Child" (PDF) (2pp., 221K)
"Cigarette
Smoke" (PDF) (2pp., 72K)
"Lead
Poisoning" (PDF) (2pp., 57K)
"Pesticides"
(PDF) (2pp., 145Kb)
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 COTC will conduct environmental health outreach and education directed at low income and minority women and their children; enhance the capacity of disadvantaged communities to understand threats posed by environmental contaminants; and provide a bridge between campus research, communities and policy makers.
Partners:
Durham Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods (CAN)
Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA)
The Durham Affordable Housing Coalition
The Partnership Effort for the Advancement of Children’s Health/Clear Corps (PEACH)
Durham People's Alliance
The Durham County Health Department
The Lincoln Community Health Center
Duke University Nursing School
Watts School of Nursing
The City of Durham Department of Neighborhood Improvement Services
The City of Durham Department of Community Development
The Children’s Environmental Health Branch of NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources
The North Carolina Asthma Alliance
East Coast Migrant Head Start
The North Carolina Community Health Center Association
The Pesticide Education Project
The North Carolina Rural Communities Assistance Project
The Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) of the Harvard Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research is working with the investigators from each of the Projects and Cores as well as an active COTC Advisory Board to translate and apply the scientific findings of the Center into information for the public, policy makers, and clinical professionals to protect the health of children.
L.E.A.D. Agency, Vinita,
Oklahoma
Integris
Baptist Regional Medical Center, Miami,
Oklahoma
The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center works closely with its Community
Advisory Committee, which includes community members from the Baltimore,
Maryland school system, community-based research and service organizations,
local churches and families of asthmatic children.
Johns
Hopkins Center in Urban Environmental Health
Johns Hopkins University Urban
Health Institute (UHI)
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Boriken Neighborhood Health Center
The Children’s Aid
Society
East Harlem Community Health Committee
Little Sisters of the Assumption
Family Health Service
Mount Sinai and North
General Hospital Pediatric Clinics
Mount Sinai
School of Medicine Community Partnerships
Settlement Health
Union Settlement
Association
The main goal of the Mount Sinai Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC)
is to develop, implement and evaluate strategies to translate scientific findings
on children’s environmental health into information that can be used by
the local community, policy makers and clinical professionals.
University of California at Berkeley
Clinica
de Salud del Valle de Salinas (CSVS)
Natividad Medical Center
South County Outreach Effort (SCORE)
Monterey County Health Department
California Rural Legal Assistance Program (CRLA)
Grower-Shipper Association of Central California
University of California at Davis
Participants
of the CHARGE and MARBLES studies
Families for Early Autism Treatment
Learning Disabilities Association
Parents Helping Parents
San
Francisco Bay Chapter of the Autism Society of America
Alameda
County Developmental Disabilities Council
Cure Autism Now
State of California health/developmental service providers (CA Departments of Developmental Services and Health Services, CA Regional Centers, and CA Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment)
A
central aim of the community-based project is to develop intervention and education
strategies that will reduce PCB and MeHg exposure in the Hmong and Lao community. This
intervention and education component (PDF) ,
directed by Dr. Vicky Persky, has focused on reducing the consumption of contaminated
fish.
A number of educational materials have been created including a simplified fishing
advisory (available in an English
version and a Hmong
version) which is specific to the bodies of water most frequently fished
by this population and is available in Hmong and Lao. An educational video was
also created to teach basic concepts about contaminants in fish, instruct viewers
how to use the fishing advisory and demonstrate how to clean and prepare the
fish so as to limit PCB exposure. The video is available in either Hmong or Lao
with closed captioning in English. Other outreach activities include a quarterly newsletter and
a yearly community open house.
University of Iowa (1998 - 2004)
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
The UMDNJ Children’s Center research team has established a bond of trust between the Center and the greater autism community throughout New Jersey and the surrounding region.
The New Jersey Center for Outreach
and Services for the Autism Community (COSAC) is
a non-profit agency providing information and advocacy, services, family
and professional education, and consultation to New Jersey's autism community.
COSAC encourages responsible basic and applied research that would lead
to a lessening of the effects and potential prevention of autism. COSAC
is dedicated to ensuring that all people with autism receive appropriate,
effective services to maximize their growth potential and to enhancing
the overall awareness of autism in the general public.
The
Eden Institute of Princeton provides
a comprehensive continuum of lifespan services designed to enable children
and adults with autism to lead fulfilling, productive and independent lives
in their communities, to the full extent of their abilities. The non-profit
organization was founded in 1975 when parents and professionals joined
together to develop a family-oriented, multifaceted program to provide
a community-based alternative to institutionalization of children and adults
with autism.
The Douglass Developmental Disabilities
Center (DDDC)
of Rutgers University exists to meet the needs of people with autism spectrum
disorders and their families. As an “Applied Behavior Analysis” (ABA),
DDDC uses these principles to organize their delivery of services. They
work collaboratively with the families of the children and adults we serve,
and with the agencies that fund their treatment.
University of Michigan (1998 - 2005)
MCECH involved partners working in the southwest and east sides of Detroit,
including:
Butzel Family Center
Community Health and Social Services Center
(CHASS)
Detroit Department
of Health and Wellness Promotion
Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice
Friends of Parkside
Henry Ford Health System
Kettering/Butzel Health Initiative
Latino Family Services
Michigan
Department of Agriculture - Pesticide and Plant Pest Management Division
United Community Housing Coalition
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
University of Southern California/University of California at Los Angeles
Long
Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma - Long Beach, California
Center for Community Action and Environmental
Justice - Riverside, California
The Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) of the USC/UCLA
Children's Center serves as a bridge between the Center investigators
and members of the local community who are concerned about the impacts
of air pollution on children's respiratory health.
The COTC actively participates in the Steering Committee for the Center's CBPR Project. In addition, the COTC plays an important role in disseminating the Center's scientific research findings to the public and to policy makers. With the Center's two key community partners, the COTC director Andrea Hricko and outreach staff, along with Center investigators Rob McConnell and Ed Avol, have also nurtured teams of volunteers who attend training sessions and then conduct community assessments of environmental health problems. The teams, called Neighborhood Assessment or "A" Teams, decided to document the volume of traffic (and resultant air pollution) in certain communities frequented by trucks moving containers to and from the local marine ports. The "A" Team members were trained in advanced traffic counting techniques and in ultrafine particle counting techniques and then assessed identified problem areas in their communities. Some of the neighborhood assessment reports identifying high truck volumes as a percentage of total traffic, coupled with ultrafine particle measurements, have been presented to policy makers. The Neighborhood Assessment Team work is continuing, bolstered by a private foundation grant allowing expansion of the number of trained team members. All "A" Team members are bilingual community residents who receive stipends for their neighborhood assessment.
The Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research works with a large
number of community partners. The Community-based Participatory Research project
is advised by a Community Advisory Board (CAB) which consists of farmworkers,
growers and representatives from the Farm Workers
Union, the Growers’ Association,the Department
of Health, the Department of Agriculture,
the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinics,
the local Spanish radio station (Radio KDNA),
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, Columbia
Legal Services,
and the local office of the Environmental
Protection Agency. The CBPR has also enlisted local organizations such
as the Farm Workers Union ,
the Washington
State Migrant Council,
and the Growers’ Association to
help in outreach.
Other partnerships come through the Center’s connection to
the University of Washington. One of the strongest links is with
the University of Washington NIEHS Center
for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health’s (CEEH) Community Outreach
and Education Program (COEP) . The
Center has partnered with COEP to develop child health relevant materials.
Collaboration with Counseling
and Advice on Reproductive Exposures (CARE) Northwest has
identified child-relevant risk communication issues. In addition,
the UW Children’s Center participated in a Town Meeting hosted by CEEH
in Autumn 2000. The Town Meeting brought together community members throughout
Washington State to talk about environmental health concerns such as those
related to agricultural pesticide use. The Center maintains a strong
link to the NIEHS/CDC-funded Pacific
Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (PNASH) .
Several PNASH projects have leveraged funding to focus on children’s
exposure to pesticides, exposure to lead and arsenic in orchard soils,
children health, and farm safety in teens. The Center continues to
coordinate and look for joint projects with PNASH, especially relating
to agricultural issues. The Center also collaborated with the Washington
Kids Count Program ,
a project of the Human Services Policy Center in the UW Evans School of
Public Affairs. WA Kids Count released the 2002 County and City Profiles
of Child and Family Well-Being in December 2002.
Centers Funded By: 