Administrative Core

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SUMMARY: METALS Administrative Core In Phase 2 of the UNM SRP Center -- Metals Exposure and Toxicity Assessment on tribal Lands in the Southwest (METALS) -- our Administrative Core (AC) will provide leadership 1) to ensure our community- partnered approach drives the integrated team research focus of METALS; 2) to enhance our translation to communities, tribal and national regulatory agencies and policy-makers, and clinicians to reduce risks; and 3) to serve as a model and a nucleus for environmental health research within our institution. The importance of integration facilitated through our AC has also enhanced dialogue among communities, our research team, and decision-makers, and developed METALS as a nucleus for environmental health science expansion within our institution, leveraging new resources for expansion of our work through supplemental institutional funding support and instrumentation. The strong partnership within our team will continue to build multi-directional trust among our projects, cores, and stakeholders. The trust and strength of these partnerships have been instrumental in the implementation of an ongoing clinical intervention trial, Thinking Zinc, through a participatory design process that integrated strong science with cultural needs. The process of multi-directional listening, understanding the basis for proposed design changes, and iteratively and collaboratively developing a workable design has resulted in strong, longitudinal participation in this ongoing trial. This fundamental focus for research that does not just identify problems, but seeks to designed evidence-based solutions with community partners to reduce risk is at the core of the METALS renewal. Integrated community:researcher teams in our research ensure community knowledge identifies sampling locations, exposure pathways, and resources significant to the communities’ use and culture to ensure the relevance of our research and the applicability of our risk-reduction interventions. The importance of the strong, trusted networks built through METALS was underscored in our team’s ability to work through this existing network in response to COVID-19 to coordinate PPE purchase and distribution, support leadership decisions through analysis of local disease trends and community risk factors to aid in pandemic management. In Phase 2, the AC will sustain and build on our success through the following aims: Aim 1: Promote activities designed to enhance the participation and impact of community partners on the direction and translation of METALS research to identify effective risk reduction interventions. Aim 2: Facilitate activities structured to promote integrated research efforts among METALS projects and cores that strengthen team diversity and team science. Aim 3: Continue to build the role of our center and team as the nucleus of community-partnered research in environmental health within our institution. Aim 4: Iteratively develop and amend logic models to evaluate progress on our aims as the METALS Center, and support cores and projects in development of metrics to evaluate their component progress through utilizing the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Framework.