Community Engagement Core

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE (CEC)- PROJECT SUMMARY The Community Engagement Core (CEC) will achieve the following: 1) engage with communities to understand their environmental health concerns; 2) conduct research that reflects community needs and priorities and; 3) evaluate the ability of SRC research to prevent or reduce exposures to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS) and alkylated PAHs (a-PAHs). The CEC will interweave expertise at Oregon State University and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (SITC). The CEC is committed to building lasting Indigenous-Academic partnerships and supporting new methods for building collaborations. One avenue is by providing training to SRC investigators and trainees via Sense of Place seminars and forming the Indigenous Research Network. This work culminates in a Center-wide Data Sharing Workshop, wherein the CEC will lead an effort to consolidate best practices for building and maintaining Indigenous-Academic partnerships, to include improving research ethics training, templates for data and material sharing and ownership agreements, and memorandums of understanding. Additionally, the CEC works closely with all SRC projects and cores to provide training opportunities and support partner-engaged research and engagement. The CEC integrates strongly with Research Translation (Admin Core) to disseminate Center-wide research and ensure that the report-back of research results is conducted in an appropriate manner. Overall, the CEC conducts research within a community-engaged framework, which facilitates and supports a personalized approach to all aspects of research, from initiation to application of research to prevent exposure. These foundational best practices underpin the following CEC projects. The CEC will partner with Coast Salish Indigenous communities to characterize exposure to PAHs and a-PAHs in the diet (Coast Salish Clam Garden Sampling Study) and in the air (Coast Salish Wildfire Smoke Exposure Study). To facilitate informed risk assessment, the CEC will work with other SRC investigators to build a user-friendly Indigenous Risk Assessment Calculator. Values from the calculator will be used at the state level to better understand risk from consumption of contaminated clams. In support of informed risk assessment, the CEC will lead a working group to develop guidelines for risk assessments that incorporate non-chemical stressors with a focus on Indigenous exposure scenarios and exposure routes. To expand understanding of best practices within Indigenous-Academic partners, the CEC will support the continued offering of the Tribal Environmental Health Summit, to share and broaden expertise in environmental health. Across the lifespan of the project, the CEC will conduct ongoing formative evaluation to assess the impact of the research on informing prevention at the individual, familial, and community-level.