Women's Health Awareness

About the Program

The Women’s Health Awareness (WHA) Community Engagement Program is an innovative environmental health research, public health practice and advocacy initiative. The Program is located within the Office of Human Research and Community Engagement (OHRCE), Clinical Research Branch (CRB), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). WHA engages women across North Carolina and beyond, with a focus on understudied, underrepresented, underreported, and underserved (U4) populations.

The Program has the following aims:

• To provide evidence-based community health interventions to promote wellness, environmental health literacy, and environmental public health.
• To examine and respond to environmental health disparities utilizing a racial and gender equity lens.
• To advocate for environmental justice issues and support the building of localized community health resiliency.
• To train students, researchers and post-doctoral fellows, and clinical and public health practitioners in community and environmental health research and practice.

WHA Mission Statement

Our mission is to conduct community-engaged research, educate and advocate on the intersecting issues of environmental health disparities, environmental and social justice, health and well-being, and gender and racial inequities to build community-based health resiliency. This includes utilizing community partnerships to support the development of research, evidence-based interventions and health education and environmental literacy aimed at empowering women to take responsibility for their health, understand the critical intersections of health and the environment, and to advocate on environmental justice issues directly impacting their communities.

Institutional Linkage

The Women’s Health Awareness (WHA) Community Engagement Program, housed within the NIEHS, seeks to enhance research for U4 populations of women across their lifespan. The WHA Program specifically supports the following themes outlined in the NIEHS Strategic Plan (2018-2023):

• Advance Environmental Health Sciences (EHS)
• Enhance EHS through stewardship and support
• Promote translation – data to knowledge to action

To learn more about how the WHA Program directly supports each of these thematic areas, please visit Research and Projects and Education and Outreach.

Program Team

Joan P. Packenham, Ph.D.
Director, NIEHS Office of Human Research and Community Engagement (OHRCE);
DIR CRB

Tel 984-287-4413
Fax 919-541-9854
packenhm@niehs.nih.gov

Lynae T. Baker, M.P.H.
Program Specialist

Tel 984-287-4414
lynae.baker@nih.gov

Jaslyn A. Grullon, M.P.H.
Contractor — Scientific Program Analyst

Tel 984-287-4999
jaslyn.grullon@nih.gov

Jane M. Lambert
Regulatory Affairs Specialist

Tel 984-287-4419
Fax 919-541-9854
lambert@niehs.nih.gov

Mya N. Love-Whitley
Fellow — IRTA Postbaccalaureate

Tel 984-287-4415
mya.love-whitley@nih.gov

Jennifer A. Profanchik
Contractor — Phlebotomist

Tel 984-287-4431
jennifer.profanchik@nih.gov

Craig Wladyka, M.P.A., CIP
Clinical Protocol Coordinator

Tel 984-287-4425
cwladyka@niehs.nih.gov