Community Outreach and Engagement Core

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Abstract - Community Outreach and Engagement Core The Community Outreach and Engagement Core (COEC) will foster a culture of collaboration among environmental health scientists, community organizations, environmental justice experts and public health agencies to create and sustain multi-directional partnerships for environmental health research that is responsive to the health needs and concerns of the most vulnerable communities in California's Central Valley. This region, considered to have the most productive agricultural industry in the country, also leads the nation in areas of concentrated poverty, environmental contamination, and poor environmental health conditions. Specific COEC activities to address these challenges will include 1) partnership development through a comprehensive needs and opportunities assessment of both EHS CC investigators and the most vulnerable populations and places in California's Central Valley 2) Community Stakeholders Advisory Committee to help ensure that the Center's activities are informed by the needs and concerns of these communities and that the Center proactively engages community leaders in meaningful ways; 3) a multifaceted training program building capacity of both EHS CC scientists and community partners; 4) a translation and dissemination process to put EHS CC results in the hands of policy makers, public agency personnel, health professionals and community leaders to support their health promotion strategies. The COEC is integrated with all other Center components. This will be achieved through 1) the Administrative Core's Center-wide annual retreat in which the COEC will oversee a community stakeholder-planned session; 2) COEC leaders and stakeholders review of proposals for Pilot Projects for their community relevance; 3) the COEC will collaborate with the Career Development Program to provide early stage investigators and other Center members with training in communication skills and in presentation of EHS research results to non-technical audiences, as well as opportunities to teach science literacy and 4) The COEC and community stakeholders collaborate with the Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core and the Exposure Facility Core, to participate in the Design and Interpretation Clinics to learn about the research process and provide community perspectives on relevance to their lives.