Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention and Education

简介（由申请人提供）：位于德克萨斯大学泰勒健康中心（UTHCT）的NIOSH西南农业健康、伤害预防和教育中心（SW中心）即将完成其运营的第十年，为包括阿肯色州、路易斯安那州、新墨西哥州、俄克拉荷马州和德克萨斯州在内的美国第六公共卫生区提供服务。SW中心的工作将继续具有以下特点：1)通过与隶属于五州地区各机构的多学科研究团队的合作伙伴关系，以及与墨西哥共享边界的最大部分，强有力的区域参与；2)高度参与的外部和内部顾问委员会；3)针对特殊工人群体的工作范围。这个SW中心的提案在许多方面回应了当前的项目公告。该中心的主题是“解决特殊农业人口中的工人问题的创新方法”，反映了外联活动、项目和择优试点项目研究领域将如何解决该地区农业和人口多样性特征的一系列问题。研究项目涵盖了一系列广泛的主题——研究移徙青少年农场工人的慢性病指标、农业化学品和污染物对基因表达的影响、墨西哥湾沿岸捕虾渔民的工人健康保护、以及养牛作业中的接触和健康评估。预防/干预项目将审查影响农业飞行员工作风险的健康因素，健康信息对农业环境中青年的健康保护和减少风险的影响，以及培养社区卫生工作者或宣传人员在农业卫生问题方面的能力。教育/翻译项目包括在纳瓦霍民族建立农药教育示范农场，以及在听力保护方面教育林农和伐木工人的有效方法。其中许多项目具有协同效应，依赖于获取和分析与风险相关的数据，应对建立利益相关者伙伴关系、接触农业人口、开发文化上适合的工具以通过社区投入推动变革以及评估这些努力的结果等挑战。SW中心准备在即将到来的拨款周期中提供一个综合计划，其管理和项目“将解决从识别/因果关系到翻译的整个问题连续体”。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The NIOSH Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention, and Education (SW Center) at The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler (UTHCT), is completing its tenth year of operation, serving U.S. Public Health Region VI including Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The work of the SW Center will continue to be characterized by: 1) strong regional involvement through collaborative partnerships with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers affiliated with institutions throughout the five-state region and along the largest segment of shared border with Mexico; 2) highly participatory external and internal advisory boards; and 3) a scope of work addressing special worker populations. This SW Center proposal is responsive to the current Program Announcement in numerous respects. The theme of the Center, "Innovative Approaches to Address Workers in Special Agricultural Populations," reflects how the outreach activities, projects, and merit-based pilot program study areas will address a number of issues characterizing the diversity of agriculture and populations in this region. Research projects cover a wide array of topics- the study of chronic disease indicators among migrant adolescent farm workers, agricultural chemical and contaminant influences on gene expression, worker health protection among shrimp fishermen of the Gulf Coast, and exposure and health assessment in cattle finishing operations. Prevention/intervention projects will examine health factors influencing the work risks for agricultural aviators, the impact of health messages on health protection and risk reduction of youth in agricultural environments, and deriving competencies in agricultural health issues for community health workers or promotoras. Education/translation projects include establishing model farms for pesticide education on the Navajo Nation and effective methods of educating foresters and loggers in hearing conservation. Many of these projects have synergies and rely upon acquiring and analyzing data relative to risk, addressing the challenges of building stakeholder partnerships, reaching farming populations, developing culturally appropriate tools for motivating change through community input, and evaluating outcomes from these efforts. The SW Center is poised in the coming grant cycle to deliver an integrated program whose administration and projects "will address the entire continuum of a problem from identification/causation through translation."