Community Engagement Core

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Project Summary – Community Engagement Core To address long-standing tribal concerns about environmental health disparities associated with chronic exposures to metals and other contaminants in water, air, land and food, the Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the UNM Center for Native American Environmental Health Equity Research (CNAEHER) will focus engagement efforts on (i) building sustainable and culturally appropriate environmental health (EH) capacity in the partner tribal communities, (ii) increasing community participation in EH research approaches, particularly multiple pathway exposure assessment, and (iii) implementing multidirectional translational strategies that not only effectively communicate the research results to the communities but also ensure that community knowledge and Native perspectives on health inform the science and tribal and federal decision-making. The CEC will build on established relationships of the UNM Community Environmental Health Program with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, Crow Tribe in Montana, and the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and will expand in later years of the Center to build new relationships with Pacific Northwest tribes in Washington. CEC will use electronic means to coordinate activities of a team of tribal researchers, specialists at nonprofit and Indian-owned organizations, and university-based scientists to have regular communication and collaboration across the wide expanses of the Western U.S. that separate these communities. The team will address commonly shared tribal concerns about heavy metal contamination of water, air, lands and traditional foods through community-based environmental monitoring, university-based research into the biological mechanisms of toxicity of chronic exposures, and webinars and workshops designed to ensure that indigenous perspectives inform actions to improve environmental health literacy and capacity to reduce health risks in Native communities. The Center’s community engagement and research provide an opportunity to evaluate generalizability of engagement methods and environmental and biomedical research to other Native American communities facing similar EH disparities. By expanding into the Pacific Northwest during the initial five-year project, the Center will develop the capacity and know-how to become the environmental health disparities center for all of Native America.