Genes & environment: education to involve communities

该项目旨在促进公众对环境毒物遗传易感性研究的社会、伦理和法律的影响的理解。 认识到遗传科学发展在21世纪世纪的潜在影响，研究人员建议学校、工会和工人、科学家和少数民族社区建立广泛的伙伴关系，建立一个论坛，就与基因-环境研究有关的社会伦理问题分享意见，并教育各方了解这些意见。 参与该项目的四个社区是环境科学家、劳工倡导团体、环境正义社区组织者和青年教育工作者。 这四个合作伙伴中的每一个都为围绕基因-环境易感性问题的外展和教育计划的发展带来了独特而有价值的观点。 该项目将评估社区关注这一问题的准备情况，制定社区驱动的教育和外联方案，并随着科学的发展和社区问题的出现，制定持续对话的机制。 从更广泛的角度来看，这一项目的活动将为这四个群体提供一个竞技场，使他们能够聚集在一起，就基因-环境敏感性领域的重要问题交流各自的观点。 该项目设计的各个阶段从每个社区伙伴内部的工作开始，逐步发展到社区共同努力交流彼此对感兴趣问题的看法的活动。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) This project is designed to promote public understanding of the social, ethical and legal implications of research on genetic susceptibility to environmental toxicants. In recognition of the potential impact of genetic science developments in the 21st century, the investigators propose a broad partnership of schools, unions and workers, scientists, and minority communities to develop a forum to share views on socio-ethical issues related to gene-environmental research and to educate all parties on these views. The four communities represented in this project are environmental scientists, labor advocacy groups, environmental justice community organizers and youth educators. Each of these four partners brings a unique and valuable view to the development of outreach and educational programs around issues of gene-environmental susceptibility. The project will assess community readiness to focus on this issue, develop community-driven educational and outreach programs and develop mechanisms for ongoing dialogue as the science develops and community issues emerge. The broader view of this project is that these activities will provide an arena for these four communities to come together and share each group 's perspectives of the issues of importance in areas of gene-environmental susceptibility. The stages of the design of this project start with work within each community partner and build to activities in which the communities work together to share each others' perspective on the issues of interest.