2016 Princess Chulabhorn International Science Congress

University Of Kentucky, Lexington KY

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Princess Chulabhorn International Science Congress conference series is an important platform for continuing the coordination of US and Southeast Asian stakeholder expertise directed at multiple facets of environmental health. The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center (UK-SRC), led by Dr. Bernhard Hennig, proposes to partner with other Superfund Research Centers to develop and implement a special focus nutrition symposium within this conference program. Conference dates are November 13-17, 2016, at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The overarching objective of the proposed special focus nutrition symposium is to facilitate scientific exchange within an emerging prevention paradigm, better define the complex but common links between health and environment particularly within Southeast Asian countries, and enable use of shared understandings of current research. To help accomplish the goals of the nutrition symposium of tackling environmental pollution and associated disease risks in Southeast Asia through nutritional interventions, we propose the following four specific aims: (1) to compare and assess population health impacts associated with infectious agents, to advance the field of exposure science, and to prevent environmental disease through multi-level interventions and new risk-assessment paradigms that include nutrition or healthful diets; (2) to examine multiple environmental stressors and health status as a variant of disease by studying persistent organic pollutants, metals, mixtures, and new and emerging pollutants that exist in Southeast Asia; (3) to facilitate intellectual exchange among scientists and trainees in the health and environmental science fields by identifying innovative sustainable strategies for using nutrition to modulate environmental stressors; and (4) to provide a platform for strengthening collaborations between US and Southeast Asian trainees and early-career environmental scientists who tackle 21st century environmental challenges. The conference objectives of this special nutrition symposium will be accomplished by inviting five session speakers, from the US and/or Southeast Asian nations, to participate. In addition to the oral presentations, a poster session with a similar nutrition focus will maximize the interactions students and trainees have with more established scientists and stakeholders. The outcomes from the special nutrition symposium include defining the current state of the field of health and the environment, identifying knowledge gaps, promoting collaborative research, and publishing the outcomes that result from the symposium.