Gulf Region Health Outreach Program

Environmental Health Capacity and Literacy Project

Building social capital and engaging Gulf Coast communities in leadership development is the foundation for the Environmental Health Capacity and Literacy Project (EHCLP). The EHCLP will strengthen the resilience of vulnerable Gulf Coast communities by: building environmental health capacity to deliver coordinated specialty care; integrating the roles of community health workers, including environmental health navigators, as a viable and sustainable component of the health system; expanding maternal and child health services to strengthen family resilience in disaster prone communities experiencing repeated environmental stressors; and embedding an environmental health science curriculum in public schools and universities across the region to promote environmental health literacy. more »

Baton Rouge Area Foundation

Risk and Resilience in Environmental Health

The overall goal of the project is to implement a rapidly deployable community-based research, outreach, and education program addressing risk and resilience in the context of environmental disasters. Through scientific, intervention implementation research, the Tulane team is 1) examining real or perceived risk to the health of fisher folk families along the Gulf Coast associated with two persistent exposure pathways of concern to them: seafood consumption and air, and 2) building sustained environmental health capacity in the Gulf Coast through a regional network of informed primary care providers & a community?based interventionist and navigation network. more »

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Transdisciplinary Research Consortium for Gulf Resilience on Women’s Health

In 2010, NIEHS lead a trans-NIH effort to create a network of community and university partnerships seeking to identify individual and community health effects potentially stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to enhance community resiliency to potential disasters. The five-year program supports population-based and laboratory research to develop the scientific evidence base needed to promote health and well-being for people living along the Gulf Coast who are at greatest risk for potential adverse physical, psychological and behavioral health effects. In addition, research will seek to develop new strategies to enhance capacity to respond to future disasters and prevent or minimize disaster-related adverse health effects. Ultimately, research findings from the Deepwater Horizon Research Consortia should contribute to the evidence base needed to improve preparedness and response aimed at minimizing disaster-related health impacts. In contrast to the NIEHS worker-focused Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study (GuLF STUDY) these studies will concentrate on the range of potential acute and long-term health effects in the general public. more »