The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announce the Request for Applications (RFA) for EPA-NIH Centers of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research, which seeks proposals for innovative and multi-disciplinary research to advance understanding, to promote mitigation strategies and/or prevention of environmentally driven health disparities and to improve access to healthy and sustainable environments for vulnerable populations. Environmental health disparities are more likely to occur in vulnerable communities with greater proximity to multiple sources of pollution, ongoing and multiple exposures throughout life, lower socioeconomic status, and limited or no access to quality healthcare. Therefore, the research should aim to understand the relationships between biological, chemical, environmental, genetic and epigenetic factors and social determinants of health.
Application Open Date: 10/31/2014
Application Close Date: 01/09/2015
URL: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-ES-14-010.html
Applications should address one or more of the following Research Priority areas:
· How the cumulative effects of exposures to multiple environmental chemicals may combine with the effects of physical and social stressors to affect human health
· How are different socioeconomic groups exposed differentially to environmental hazards and contaminants and what are the drivers for such exposures scenarios?
· How different land use considerations and decision-making processes contribute to health disparities
· How proximity to public transportation, housing and the built environment impact levels and types of exposures and affect social stress, physical activity and pollution exposures
· How do sustainable approaches reduce disproportionate health burdens and build community resilience?
This RFA is issued as a joint funding initiative between EPA and three institutes at the National Institutes of Health: the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD).
Understanding the causes of environmentally driven health disparities and how to prevent them is a goal of EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC) Research Program. The SHC Research Program provides useful science and tools for decision makers at all levels to help communities advance sustainability as well as achieve regulatory compliance. SHC is collaborating with partners to conduct research that will result in science-based knowledge to guide decisions that will better sustain a healthy society and environment in America’s communities. The research is intended to expand knowledge in this field and add to available resources for communities, the public and decision-makers at all levels.
Source: EPA