INTERGRATIVE HEALTH SCIENCES CORE

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The Integrative Health Sciences Core (IHSC) is central to the successful completion of the program of research proposed in this renewal. IHSC activities expand the previous scope of work of the Field Operations Core in the original P01 by maximizing project coordination and efficiency. This will be accomplished by centralizing all aspects of school and community relations, subject contact, health data collections and cohort maintenance. The complementary nature of the proposed projects and the synergy achieved from utilizing the same volunteer subject population and community air pollution sampling locations for all three projects provide a common basis for consolidation of complementary field support efforts. The integrative coordination provided by the IHSC will reduce the need for repetitive subject contacts required to accomplish the aims of the three projects in the renewal P01, establish a unified and efficient updating system for subject tracking and facilitate streamlined and coordinated interactions with study subjects, all of which are required for successful cohort studies. Subject recruitment for various programmatic sub-studies will be overseen by the IHSC to balance scientific requirements and research needs with subject access and necessary research documentation. The IHSC will collect health information needed in the study projects (including individual personal computerized interview, maximal exhaled spirometry, self-administered questionnaires and additional genetic material for gene/environmental array analyses). The IHSC will coordinate efforts with complementary data collection activities being performed on the same study subjects for other ongoing projects, such as the off-line or realtime collection of exhaled nitric oxide and the non-invasive measurement of carotid artery thickness. This will permit timely subject interactions, make better use of limited field staff and reduce subject and school inconveniences. The core will also facilitate coordinated interactions with the Biostatistics and Data Management Core in managing data and providing prompt feedback on study performance and quality assurance activities. Additionally, the IHSC will provide a centralized contact point for each of the projects and facility cores such as the Molecular Biology Core in the SCEHSC. Finally, a centralized approach to providing for project data collection under the oversight of a single core led by one investigator with over-arching coverage of, commitments to and relationships with each of the projects will improve overall P01 efficiency.