Neighborhoods and Health Lab

National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

In FY2022 we built on our formative work of FY2022 to establish this research program for productive scientific research in future years. This included increased staffing in the Neighborhoods and Health Lab, further developing the proposed research program, and establishing collaborations across and outside of NIH. During FY2022 we hosted a research fellow (ongoing) and two post-doctoral fellows (EOD September 2021 and October 2021) and recruited one post-baccalaureate trainee (EOD September 2022). One postdoctoral fellow already secured a university position and transitioned from the Lab in August 2022 to further her scientific career. Objective 1. Regarding Objective 1, developing and testing frameworks, methods, and measures for environmental research in health disparity communities, we have continued to develop UrbanHEAT, a primary data collection project scheduled to begin collecting pilot data in Fall/Winter 2022. The pilot project will build on a NIH collaborators research infrastructure (see more below). The produced data will inform the study protocol with an expected Scientific Review in Spring 2023 and launch of data collection in Summer 2023. The primary aims of the project are to understand the impact of exposure to heat on spatial and health behaviors, with analyses focusing on both between- and within-person variability. In addition to advancing the UrbanHEAT study, the Neighborhoods and Health Lab has conducted a number of secondary analyses. At the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity in Phoenix, AZ in May 2022, the Lab presented an analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program examining racial and ethnic disparities in experienced school heat. This work will be submitted as a manuscript in Fall 2022. Two analyses of multiple behavior changes during the COVID-19 pandemic using NIMHDs COVIDs Unequal Racial Burden (CURB) survey have provided the basis for manuscripts, with expected submissions in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. A fourth manuscript investigating mediated pathways by which perceived neighborhood social environments are related to metabolic syndrome severity in the Jackson Heart Study cohort will also be submitted Fall 2022. Trainees are leading all these analyses and manuscripts. Additional ongoing secondary projects include a pre-post analysis of schoolyard characteristics (e.g., access and quality of play structures, green infrastructure) after receipt of a housing voucher (Craig Pollack, PhD, Johns Hopkins University Mobility Asthma Project), a review of walkability indices used to understand childrens physical activity behaviors, and the construction of a publicly-available environmental linkage dataset for NIMHD and collaborators. These projects will progress in the coming fiscal year. Objective 2. Related to Objective 2, mentoring to increase the diversity of the biomedical workforce, the Lab had three female trainees on staff during FY2022, two of whom are from underrepresented minority populations. Our incoming post-baccalaureate trainee is a female first-generation college graduate. Objective 3. Regarding Objective 3, developing strong collaborations across and beyond NIH, we continue building collaborations NIH and the region. We are working closely with Dr. Paule Joseph (NIAAA) to supplement her ongoing data collection (Taste and Smell in Obesity) with measures that will serve as preliminary data for our primary project, UrbanHEAT, and for her Lab. This makes efficient use of government resources. Our Lab has also partnered with Drs. Nicole Farmer, Katherine Maki, and Jennifer Barb-Smith to form a Neighborhoods-Microbiome Journal Club, which has presented at one professional meeting (Microbes and Social Equity 2022 Symposium) and will be producing two manuscripts. Dr. Kelly Jones, this labs Research Fellow, has been invited to submit a proposal with NIMHD DIRs Dr. Paula Strassle to the Society of Epidemiological Research (SER) 2023 meeting. Most of our secondary analyses have also resulted from collaborations both inside and outside of NIH, including with Drs. David Berrigan and Kim Clevenger of NCI and Dr. Craig Pollack of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) on the MAP project, Drs. Anna Napoles and Paula Strassle of NIMHD DIR on the CURB project, and Dr. Kosuke Tamura of NIMHD DIR on the JHS project.