About PEPH

Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)

Background

The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has been an innovator in promoting partnerships between community groups and researchers to address local, real-world environmental health concerns. Through the Division of Extramural Research and Training (DERT), this work began in 1994 with a small, focused effort on Environmental Justice to build communication models to provide community residents with the skills and necessary capacity to become involved in the research process with environmental health scientists and health care professionals. NIEHS soon developed complementary extramural programs designed to increase community awareness of environmental health through outreach and science education. NIEHS also developed research-intensive programs that required partnerships between community groups and researchers to address environmental health concerns of the communities. In addition, NIEHS established collaborative education and training programs for workers with the US Environmental Protection Agency to address environmental health issues resulting from hazardous waste contamination. By virtue of these initiatives, the institute gained a better appreciation of gaps in research, communication, and capacity building, and designed programs accordingly to address new areas of the social and built environments and the challenging issue of health disparities. Public health actions such as new exposure-based zoning considerations, improvement in the built environment through the use of less toxic housing materials and cleanup of home environments, changes in chemical regulatory policies at multiple levels, and changes in personal health promotion behaviors at home and at schools have been a hallmark of NIEHS-sponsored projects over the past decade.

Through sustained support of these programs, NIEHS has become a trusted source for environmental health information and a champion of community environmental health. Projects supported by the Institute’s extramural programs developed materials, communication models, and research strategies that have led to notable educational, public health, and policy impacts. Many of these materials were made available to the public through a web-based repository during the years 2000-2006.

During the past year, DERT has gathered and analyzed information from many sources in order to develop the next phase of the NIEHS programs in Environmental Public Health. A Request for Information(http://www.niehs.nih.gov/funding/grants/announcements/peph/index.cfm) was released in October, 2007 and 120 responses from interested parties were received and made available on the NIEHS website. A workshop was held in June, 2008 inviting thought leaders from the fields of public health, environmental justice, community based research, communication, and advocacy in order to help develop the framework for a new program called Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH). The outline of a new program of grants to support research, communication, capacity building, and evaluation over the next ten years will be described.

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Framework and goals

The Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH) will provide a structure to coordinate and support a variety of research and dissemination activities. Initiatives under the umbrella of PEPH will be designed to provide grant support in five major categories: research, communication and dissemination research, training and education, coordination, and evaluation.

For the purposes of this program, Environmental Public Health is defined as the science of conducting and translating research into action to address environmental exposures and health risks of concern to the public. This is accomplished through the dissemination of science-based information about environmental risks and diseases to communities and other stakeholders. By fostering partnerships between and among community residents/organizations, researchers, and other stakeholders in the research process, vital information about the linkages between exposures and disease can be used to promote health and reduce the risk of disease across the populations at highest risk.

A hallmark of this program is that communities will be actively engaged in all stages of the research, dissemination, and evaluation. Emphasis will be placed on robust research to investigate linkages between exposure and disease, as well as research and evaluation to improve the theories, methods, and implementation strategies for working with communities to address their environmental health concerns. The program will emphasize both scientific advances and development of practical materials for use in communities, with a focus on translating research findings into tools, materials, and resources that can be used by a variety of audiences to prevent, reduce, or eliminate adverse health outcomes caused by environmental exposures.

The PEPH program has identified the following four goals:

1. Strategically coordinate and integrate the various new and existing initiatives that involve communities and scientists working together on contemporary issues in Environmental Public Health research.
2. Develop and evaluate strategies to communicate environmental public health messages to a diversity of audiences.
3. Create and provide materials to increase awareness and literacy about environmental health risks.
4. Evaluate program contributions to the advancement of environmental public health.

By developing a number of funding opportunities in this field over the next ten years, NIEHS intends to provide multiple ways for researchers and communities to obtain support for innovative and creative activities that will place them under the umbrella of PEPH. Through this extramural program NIEHS will promote ways that investigators and communities can regularly choose from on-going Program Announcements, submit unsolicited applications, or respond to funding announcements with set-asides in order to support their endeavors.

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Program components

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Research

NIEHS is engaged in a number of on-going research initiatives(http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/programs/peph//prog/index.cfm) that address important areas in environmental public health. These include the Children’s Environmental Health Centers, The Breast Cancer and Environment Research Centers, Superfund Basic Research Program and the Superfund Worker Education and Training Program, and several trans-NIH programs in community-based participatory research, health literacy, and health disparities. These projects will fall under the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH) umbrella.

NIEHS will also develop new opportunities to support research in environmental public health. Topics of interest will be broad and diverse and include understanding the health burden associated with risks in populations with inequities in environmental exposure and disease, existing and emerging concerns regarding environmental justice, quantifying exposures to the many chemical, biological, and social stressors people experience over their lifetime at home, work, and play, and health impacts of emerging environmental threats. The research program will focus on burdens identified by communities and will have the potential for public health action at the local, regional, or national levels. The research will be focused in three areas.

• Descriptive studies necessary for communities to collect information and/or data to support an action. Some examples include research on the prevalence and sources of exposures or diseases in populations using existing or new technology to measure exposures in communities.
• Study of the linkage between exposure and disease. The study of chemical and biological exposures coupled with social factors in order to better understand the health impact of multiple and cumulative exposures over time in vulnerable populations. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods may be appropriate depending on the questions studied.
• Intervention and prevention studies. Testing effective strategies for exposure reduction and disease prevention using behavioral, education, nutritional, biological, or policy/regulatory strategies.

All research projects will include teams of researchers and community members and hypotheses should be developed jointly to reflect the concerns of the community. Translating research findings to community and other stakeholders will be required as part of the project and evaluation of the research processes and outcomes will also be necessary. Outreach and education materials will be created as part of these research projects. Training of community members in environmental health research methods can be provided as part of the research experiences by engaging them as active members of the research team involved in data collection, analysis, and discussion of interpretation and dissemination. A variety of mechanisms will be used over the next ten years to assure continued support for the best science and translation projects.

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Capacity building

NIEHS has supported innovative initiatives that have built the capacity of different groups. These programs have included the NIEHS Environmental Justice, Science Education, Worker Education and Training Program, Short Term Educational Experiences for Research (STEER) in Environmental Health Sciences, and Community Outreach and Education cores. These on-going activities will become a part of the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH). We will also explore ways to develop new educational materials for students and teachers in grades K-12.

An exciting new opportunity exists for NIEHS to take a leadership role in training the next generation of researchers to work with communities on important environmental health problems and to develop expertise in prevention-oriented research methods. These activities include training programs at the post-doctoral fellow and junior faculty levels, which will entail intensive research experiences coupled with training in the development of outreach and education materials and active involvement in dissemination activities. In addition, opportunities exist for high school students to become engaged in community-based environmental health research through the STEER and administrative supplement programs. Career development opportunities in this area can also be accomplished through the career development program of the NIEHS Core Centers programs and that will be reemphasized.

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Communication and dissemination research

In order to build environmental health literacy and effectively disseminate science-based information resulting from Environmental Public Health research, NIEHS has the opportunity through this program to advance the research base in health communication and health education, and to develop and test new and innovative communication strategies applied to environmental health concerns. In addition to the creation of effective and credible outreach and education materials, which traditionally include fact sheets, videos, and town hall meetings/forums, the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health program (PEPH) will develop a new component that will focus on research dedicated to the development and testing of messaging strategies, dissemination modes, and the use of new technologies such as social networking. It will be important to understand the effectiveness of traditional and new approaches as established and new partners work together to enhance dissemination of information and compare results across different populations.

New materials will be developed as part of many of the PEPH programs, such as the NIEHS Core Centers outreach and education cores, the Superfund Basic Research Program’s research translation and outreach cores, the Worker Education and Training Program, and various individual and Center research projects. We will also develop new educational materials for children in grades K-12 in the future. The results from communication and dissemination research within the PEPH program will assist in the dissemination of these educational and outreach materials.

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Evaluation

Evaluation is a critical component of the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH) at many levels. NIEHS is committed to fostering project evaluation at the individual research project level in order to fully understand and appreciate the effectiveness of research-community partnerships and the impact of research results for Public Health change at the local, regional and national levels. We are exploring the cost impact and feasibility of requiring such evaluations in all PEPH research projects. NIEHS is also interested in developing a cohesive plan for program evaluation that can be implemented at the inception of this new program. This will require the identification of clear program goals, the collation of existing tools for evaluation, and the development of a data collection scheme for all grantees in the program over time. NIEHS also is interested in the development of new evaluation tools and instruments that might be necessary to better quantify the impact of research and action related to community-based environmental health issues and concerns.

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Coordination

In order to assure the full utility of the products of the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH), it is critical that NIEHS provide to its grantees and stakeholders convenient access to the materials and tools developed under PEPH. In the past NIEHS developed a web-based repository for all outreach and education materials created as part of many sponsored research and translation projects. Through a contracting mechanism, a Resource Center will again be supported to manage this repository. Work will be done in conjunction with the NIEHS Office of Communications. Many responders to our RFI and at our workshop spoke to the fact that NIEHS is looked upon by state and local health departments, community organizations, and other stakeholders as an unbiased and credible source of information on contemporary environmental health issues. In order to enhance our ability to disseminate research-based information from the PEPH program, coordination between grantees, stakeholders, and the NIEHS is essential.

Regular grantee meetings will be held, bringing together the diverse group of participants in all facets of the PEPH program. In addition to sharing results from individual research projects these meetings will have the goal of educating participants in topics such as capacity building, evaluation methods, and best practices in community-based research. There will be a goal of broader sharing of ideas between and among participants in the multiple components than in the past programs.

There is also a need for coordination with different components within NIEHS and NIH and with other federal agencies, foundations, and other partners. These will be identified and handled by the appropriate offices at NIEHS.

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Timeline

Planning for the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH) is being done for a ten-year period. Changes to the NIEHS fellowship and career development programs to include goals and objectives of the PEPH program will begin development immediately and will be announced annually starting in 2009. It is anticipated, based on funds available, that funding opportunity announcements (FOA) will be released annually under the PEPH umbrella. Some will focus on existing or new topic areas solicited through Program Announcements or Requests for Applications.

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Summary

The Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Program (PEPH) is conceived of as umbrella program which will bring scientists, community members, educators, health care providers, public health officials, and policy makers together in the shared goal of advancing the impact of science-based inquiries of environmental health threats of concern to communities on local, regional, and national levels. By coordinating new and existing opportunities for support of environmental public health research and dissemination over the next decade, NIEHS will continue to lead efforts to protect the health of groups that are disadvantaged by exposure to occupational or environmental hazards. By adding training and career development into environmental public health, and fostering research of communication and dissemination strategies to translate environmental health research results to a wider variety of stakeholders, NIEHS will provide strong support for increasing science and health literacy and promoting prevention strategies to protect human health.

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