Initiative for Environmental-Health Disparities and Medicine

Goals

Multidisciplinary System Approaches and Methodologies to Identify and Address Environmental Exposure-Related Health Disparities at Meharry Medical College

Darryl B Hood, PhD- Director
Robert Levine, MD- Investigator
Ayman Al-Hendy, MD, PhD- Investigator
CK Chen, PhD- Investigator
Anthony Archibong, PhD-Co-Investigator
Eun-Sook Lee, PhD- Co-Investigator

  

Aramandla Ramesh, PhD- Investigator
Zhongmao Guo, PhD- Investigator
Vanessa Elliott, PhD- Co-Investigator
LaMonica Stewart, PhD- Co-Investigator
Uche Sampson, MD- Co-Investigator
Michelle Bruce, MD- Co-Investigator
               

The goal of the Initiative for Environmental-Health Disparities and Medicine is to encourage the application of multidisciplinary system science approaches and methodologies to addressing the disparities that exist in communities of color with respect to the disproportionate effects resulting from exposure to environmental pollutants. The Initiative also seeks to proactively identify solutions to public health and health care systems problems thereby contributing knowledge that will enhance effective decision making around the development of and prioritization of policies, interventions, and programs that result in improved health for the population that we serve. This is an essential component of our mission as resources are very limited in the socio-economically challenged population that represents our constituency.

  • The Initiative for Environmental-Health Disparities and Medicine currently conducts projects that address policy resistant problems related to the environment and health. These projects involve environmental scientists, physicians, health administrators, and public health professionals (from Meharry and Vanderbilt) in collaboration where hypotheses are developed and tested on how environmental exposures interact with social and behavioral conditions to influence the development and progression of human disease. The ultimate goal of this research is to generate knowledge that can inform the development and prioritization of environmental policies, interventions, and programs designed to reduce the burden of human illness and disability, especially in populations that are impacted adversely by environmental exposure. Specific research topics currently studied by center investigations include:
    • Understanding why the prevalence of cognitive developmental delay has continued to rise despite the implementation of policies, programs, and/or interventions designed to reduce exposure to environmental contaminants that are known to cause or exacerbate these illnesses (e.g., learning deficits and ambient air pollution)
    • Understanding why some programs designed to address communities where environmental exposure is prevalent fail to be cost effective
    • Examining the benefit-risk balance between behaviors that lead to favorable changes in energy balance (i.e., weight loss) and the potential for remobilization of lipophilic endocrine disrupting chemicals (e.g., benzo(a)pyrene) within the body
    • Examining how harmful and beneficial aspects of the social and physical environment are differentially distributed by neighborhoods, how these conditions interact with other factors to compound the effects of environmental exposures, and how such interactions may result in a greater impact of environmental exposures on minority populations (by socio-economic status or ethnicity)
    • Using multidisciplinary approaches and systems methodology to examine the cumulative health impacts of multiple environmental exposures (physical, chemical, biological, social, and psychosocial) at multiple levels (i.e., the home, workplace, neighborhoods, and community/population) to determine appropriate policy and prevention strategies.
  • The Initiative for Environmental-Health Disparities and Medicine is also committed to the conduct of projects that address policy resistant problems related to multilevel factors that affect appropriate environmental exposure screening (e.g., for childhood development, heart disease, stroke, cancer, HIV-AIDS or any other disease or risk factor) and the multilevel causal pathways through which these factors ultimately influence screening behavior and health outcomes. Planned projects include a focus on the economic and practical trade-offs among access to care, type and scope of service (e.g., penetration of managed care), quality of care, and cost containment to increase appropriate screening behavior and to prevent or improve health outcomes.