Rural Environmental Health Training Program

项目总结 影响人类健康的环境暴露传统上与城市的工业污染源有关。 环境，而农村景观特有的暴露和相关的健康后果一直较少 在环境健康科学培训中强调。为了解决这一差距，农村环境健康 (REH)培训计划将利用弗吉尼亚理工大学在农业、工程、兽医和 在农村地区进行自然资源研究和推广，以促进生物医学和公共卫生培训和 研究。REH计划将在以下领域为博士后研究员提供环境健康培训 毒理学、环境流行病学、暴露科学和风险评估。实习生将专注于他们的 三个重点领域之一的论文研究：环境介导性疾病的机制 在农村地区普遍存在，农村景观中暴露的特征，或社区参与的方法 解决农村地区的环境卫生优先事项。五至五年期间，将会招聘六名REH学员。 参加弗吉尼亚理工大学博士学位授予项目的年度资助期包括：1) 翻译生物学、医学和健康，2)生物医学和兽医科学，3)环境和 水资源工程，4)生物系统工程，5)鱼类和野生动物保护，6) 生物科学。在他们四年的培训中，他们将参加环境方面的正式课程 健康科学，包括毒理学、流行病学和暴露科学，以获得方法上的深度 技能。REH学员将获得团队科学和科学沟通技能，以及在 科学-政策接口，并通过参与全球接口接受职业规划指导 改变(IGC)跨学科研究生教育计划。IGC将使他们接触到广泛的 关于气候变化和农村环境污染对健康的相互威胁的全球变化研究。 REH学员将参加由REH领导层领导的日记俱乐部，以建立同志关系，相互学习 其他方面，并与有关农村环境健康的文献保持同步。支持REH计划 由一个跨越四所学院(医学、兽医、工程和自然)的领导团队 资源)和另外22名教师导师，资助了尖端跨学科研究项目 来自NIH和其他联邦机构的拨款，包括NSF、USDA和NASA。作为一项新的计划， 领导团队制定了一项指导和评估计划，其中包括多种独立的方法 来自实习生、教师导师的反馈，以及由长期的 NIEHS资助的培训方案，以指导进展并确保REH的持续增长和成功 实习生。

PROJECT SUMMARY Environmental exposures affecting human health are traditionally associated with industrial sources in urban environments, while exposures and associated health outcomes unique to rural landscapes have been less emphasized in environmental health sciences training. To address this gap, the Rural Environmental Health (REH) training program will leverage Virginia Tech’s strengths in agriculture, engineering, veterinary, and natural resources research and outreach in rural areas to advance biomedical and public health training and research. The REH program will provide predoctoral fellows with environmental health training in the areas of toxicology, environmental epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment. Trainees will focus their dissertation research within one of three focus areas: mechanisms of environmentally-mediated diseases prevalent in rural areas, characterization of exposures in rural landscapes, or community-engaged approaches to address environmental health priorities in rural areas. A total of six REH trainees will be recruited over the 5- year funding period from participating PhD degree granting programs at Virginia Tech including: 1) Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health, 2) Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences, 3) Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, 4) Biological Systems Engineering, 5) Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and 6) Biological Sciences. Over their 4 years of training, they will participate in formal coursework in environmental health sciences, including toxicology, epidemiology, and exposure science, to gain depth in methodological skills. REH trainees will gain team science and science communication skills, experience working at the science-policy interface, and receive career planning guidance through participation in the Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program. The IGC will expose them to the wide range of global change research on interacting health threats from climate change and pollution in rural environments. REH trainees’ will participate in a journal club led by REH leadership to build camaraderie, learn from each other, and keep abreast of the relevant literature on rural environmental health. The REH program is supported by a leadership team spanning four colleges (Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, and Natural Resources) and an additional 22 faculty mentors with cutting-edge interdisciplinary research programs funded through grants from NIH and other federal agencies including NSF, USDA, and NASA. As a new program, the leadership team has developed a mentoring and evaluation plan that includes multiple methods of independent feedback from trainees, faculty mentors, and an external advisory board made up of directors of long-standing NIEHS-funded training programs to guide progress and ensure the continued growth and success of the REH trainees.