1/2-GEOHealth Hub: Improving Agricultural Health in Southeast Asia-Thailand

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In our planning grant we found that agricultural workers in Thailand (42% of the working population) were self- employed (informal sector), with little economic security, no formal occupational health & safety protections and significant exposures to pesticides. Thus they represent a population in need of research to policy initiatives. The initial research of our GEOHealth HUB (Mahidol University, Thailand & University of Massachusetts, USA) will focus on the agricultural health research question of whether some pesticides, widely used in Southeast Asian agriculture, act as endocrine disrupters, altering endocrine hormone homeostasis and resulting in increased risk of metabolic syndrome and associated diseases such as diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease, all of which are on the rise in Thailand. In the paired research application (1/2-GEOHealth HUB: Improving Agricultural Health in Southeast Asia-Thailand), we hypothesize that disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis hormone homeostasis is a biomarker of risk for the development of metabolic disorders, and that several widely used pesticides act as HPT/HPA disrupters. To evaluate our hypothesis we will: 1) Use the Thai Universal Health Care System data to conduct a cross-sectional study of metabolic disorders by occupation; 2) Evaluate sub-chronic changes in HPT & HPA hormones longitudinally among Thai organic and pesticide using farmers; 3) Examine the acute endocrine impacts of pesticide spraying events for selected insecticides & herbicides; 4) Evaluate the impact of genetic polymorphisms on pesticide metabolism. This proposed research project represents the initial focus of our GEOHealth Hub, but future projects will extend the range of agricultural health research and expand into other related occupational & environmental health topics (climate change, other chronic diseases, neurobehavioral health and other work sectors). The matched training program for the GEOHealth Hub focuses on institutional capacity building through a program of mentored research training for 15 junior faculty and medical staff over 5 years at our partner institutions (initially Mahidol University and the Thai Ministry of Public Health). Each trainee will have a Mentorship Team (Thai and U.S. mentors). The training program will include: a) 1 month Introduction to GEOHealth program at Mahidol; b) 6 months of research specific training and mentorship in the U.S. (UMass, Rutgers or Mt. Sinai), resulting in a funded interdisciplinary project that extends the research being conducted in the paired research application; c) data collection, analysis and manuscript(s) from the approved research project, supported by Mentorship Team. The program is designed to establish an international, interdisciplinary collaborative research group that will continue to work together in the future. The training program will link with our proposed research project through extensions of the current project aims and pilot projects that extend the scope of the research in agricultural health, aiding the GEOHealth Hub to expand its research capacity. As the Hub develops, we will add new training partners from other Thai and Southeast Asian universities and institutions. We will use short term training to recruit future institutional partners through existing public healt networks (ThaiPHEIN, SEAPHEIN & APACPH) and to create opportunities for Hub members to interact and develop ideas for new approaches to agricultural health research. Research findings and tools, as well as training materials will be disseminated via our website and through our short term training workshops and seminars. We expect increased research capacity will be reflected in publications (number and quality), extramural funding, multidisciplinary collaborations, development of new research areas and agricultural health policy changes.