Core--Community Outreach and Education

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Description: The Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP) was reorganized and made the Community Outreach and Education Core in 1999. In addition, representatives from each research core and facility have been made investigators of the core and together with the Core Director, Dr. Merchant, and two Core Co-directors, and Center Director of Communications, constitute the COEP steering committee. The mission of the COEP is to serve as a technical resource for local, state, national, and international legislative bodies, grassroots community organizations, and populations with special needs to assist in providing current, appropriate, science- and technology-based environmental health information. Rural Americans are more often at increased risk from a number of agricultural and rural environmental hazards and exposures, have less access to healthcare providers, and generally have more adverse health outcomes than Americans living in urban areas. Farmers, farm family members, children, the elderly, and the poor are at particular risk for rural and environmental diseases and injuries. In an ongoing effort to address the environmental concerns of Iowans and others living in the rural Midwest, the EHSRC's Community Outreach and Education Core has drawn together representatives from academe, agribusiness, state legislative bodies, and grassroots rural and environmental organizations. The specific aims of the COEP Core are to provide coordination within EHSRC for educational programming and outreach services; promote awareness of research opportunities, capabilities, and technical services available within EHSRC Research Cores and Facilities and to generate collaboration with other researchers in public and private sectors; develop mechanisms, in cooperation with other university, state, and regional centers and programs, to identify existing resource materials, develop community-appropriate resource materials where none exist, and efficiently disseminate research findings and other resources; to utilize Center resources to create a mentoring system for regional youth; to identify the needs of, and respond to requests for programs/services generated by, community-based organizations representing workers, consumers, professionals, institutions, and populations with specials needs; to promote and cosponsor global environmental health outreach and education; and to identify and address rural and agricultural environmental health policies through organization of science-driven conferences, etc.