New Mexico Center for Advancement of Research, Engagement, & Science on Health

描述(申请人提供)：尽管有许多证据表明少数群体和其他边缘化人群中持续存在环境健康差距，但真正的挑战摆在面前--制定、实施和维持有效的干预战略，以减少这些不同人群的健康差距，无论是基于政策、临床、社会还是行为。新墨西哥大学健康科学中心(UNM HSC)的研究人员在与政策制定者和社区团体就环境健康(EH)问题进行合作方面有着悠久的历史。然而，研究和填补信息空白以告知干预措施的基础设施并不存在。环境健康核心(EHC)与新墨西哥州健康差距研究、参与和科学促进中心(NM CARE HD)合作提出的努力，建立了一个干预研究议程，以合理的研究实践为基础，并了解社区需求，以减少EH差距。我们的具体目标就是为了实现这一目标。目标1：建立和扩大社区、政策制定者、研究人员和临床医生之间的现有关系，以确定和解决我们对高血压病差异的理解中的差距，并制定干预科学研究重点。目标2：启动两个新的以社区伙伴关系为基础的研究项目，重点是减少EH差异的干预措施。项目1，嘉年华：改善城市拉美裔社区的粮食安全，将开发和试点以社区为基础的协作性干预措施，以改善健康差距明显的城市粮食沙漠社区的社会和粮食环境。项目2，锌逆转铀毒性：社区干预的潜力，通过测试一种基于机制的干预措施，通过在产前队列中使用锌补充剂来逆转铀的影响，回应了社区的关切。目标3：指导少数族裔学员发展和扩大EH差异研究。我们建议建立一个充满活力、自给自足的EHC，以促进有关干预和解决社会经济、自然、化学和建筑环境问题的科学知识基础，这些问题导致了新墨西哥州土著美国人和拉美裔社区面临的EH差异。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Though much evidence exists of persistent environmental health disparities within minority and other marginalized populations, the real challenge lies ahead-to develop, implement, and sustain effective intervention strategies to reduce health disparities in these diverse populations, be they policy, clinical, social, or behaviorally based. Researchers at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNM HSC) have a long history of working with policy makers and community groups on environmental health (EH) issues. However, the infrastructure to research and fill information gaps to inform interventions does not exist. The efforts proposed by the Environmental Health Core (EHC), in collaboration with other components of the New Mexico Center for Advancement of Research, Engagement & Science on Health Disparities (NM CARES HD) establishes an intervention research agenda to reduce EH disparities based on sound research practices and informed by community needs. Our specific aims are designed to achieve this goal. Aim 1: To build on and expand existing relationships between communities, policy makers, researchers and clinicians to identify and address gaps in our understanding of EH disparities and develop an intervention science research focus in EH disparities. Aim 2: Initiate two new community partnership-based research projects, focused on interventions to reduce EH disparities. Project 1, Fiestas: Improving Food Security in an Urban Hispanic Community, will develop and pilot a collaborative community-based intervention to improve the social and food environment in an urban, food desert community with marked health disparities. Project 2, Zinc Reversal of Uranium Toxicity: Potential for Community-Based Intervention, responds to community concerns by testing a mechanism-based intervention to reverse the effects of uranium through use of zinc supplements in a prenatal cohort. Aim 3: Mentor minority trainees to develop and expand EH disparities research. We propose a vigorous, self-sustaining EHC to advance the scientific base of knowledge about interventions and solutions to socioeconomic, natural, chemical, and built environment issues contributing to the EH disparities faced by Native Americans and Hispanic communities in New Mexico.