Overview

    The Community Outreach and Education Core (COEC) provides a community context for the research and integrated health sciences occurring within the Center and supports the Center's goal to translate its research into public health policy and clinical practice. The long-term objectives of the Harvard NIEHS Center's Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP) are to integrate and implement the outreach-related goals and mission of the Harvard NIEHS Center for Environmental Health with those of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Core Director and Members

Core Director: Ann Backus, Director of Outreach for the Harvard ERC and the Superfund Basic Research Program.

Highlights

The COEC has carried out numerous projects ranging from training for medical residents, educational programs for high school and college students, development of an environmental health nurses collaborative, conferences for nurses and other health care professionals, regional workshops, strengthening the Visiting Scholars program, development of the New England Endocrine Disruptor (NEED) Workshop, participation in a city-wide science festival providing public health messages on lung health and sun exposure, and photographic displays.

The Blended Model - Healthy People 2010 and the Ottawa Charter

Our COEC programs will be built on a newly conceived Blended Model that incorporates the relevant outcome objectives of Healthy People 2010 and the approach or process embodied in the Ottawa Carter developed by the World Health Organization in 1986.

We will choose “settings” where health can be created and address health issues from the perspectives of personal skills, community action, supportive environments, health promotion, and policy development. This model supports the evaluation literature that suggests that an integrated, multi-faceted approach is more likely to succeed than a single effort.(Jackson, Perkins et al. 2006) 

Target Audience: Outreach to Health Care Professionals 

• Project #1: Health Care Community - Pediatricians 
• Project #2: Outreach to the Health Care Community - Environmental Health for Nurses Collaborative

Target Audience: Outreach on Public Health Issues of Concern to the Lay Public and Researchers

• Project #3: Public Health Outreach: Visiting Scholars and Air Quality Improvement Project (AirQual)
• Project #4: Public Health Outreach: Researchers, Academia, and Organizations: The New England Endocrine Disruptor [NEED] Workshop
• Project #5: Public Health Outreach - Cambridge Science Festival 

Announcements & Core Events

• March 19, 2009: Greater Boston Environmental Nursing Collaborative Meeting, Boston School of Public Health, 3:00 – 5:00 pm.

• March 27, 2009: NIEHS Center Visiting Scholars Meeting, HSPH.

• April 4, 2009; Environmental Action 2009, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA



• April 25, 2009: Cambridge Science Festival/Harvard/MIT activities at MIT Museum 10-5 pm.

  http://www.cambridgesciencefestival.org/2009Festival/2009ScheduleOfEvents.aspx

• Update November 2008: The Environmental Health Nursing Education Collaborative recently added Climate Change and Health: A Resource Guide: Resources for Health Care Providers to Take Action Now to its website.

• Update March 10, 2009: Ann Backus provided a lecture on effects of environmental exposures in the Health Assessment course at UMASS Boston College of Nursing.

• Update March 11, 2009: The New England Endocrine Disruption (NE_ED) Conference was held at the Harvard School of Public Health. The topic "Breast cancer, bisphenol A, and DES," was address by the following speakers: Ana Soto from Tufts, Kat Coser from MGH, and Julie Palmer from BU.

• Please check out other events at the Department of Environmental Health website.

Collaborations

• MIT NIEHS Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Kathy Vandiver, PhD, Director, COEC Core.
  • Purpose: To provide annually joint interactive activities entitled "Science in Everyday Life: Environmental Health Science - A Closer Look at Environmental Exposures" for the Cambridge Science Festival. Activities included discussion of DNA damage and repair with emphasis on skin cancer; individual measurements of Peak Expiratory Flow and discussion of airway health; discussion of lung disease and lung health and viewing of microscope slides of lung tissue; use of April® Age Progression Software to demonstrate aging subsequent to smoking, UV light exposure, and/or obesity. www.cambridgesciencefestival.org/Home.aspx
• Greater Boston Environmental Health Nursing Collaborative - a joint effort of the Harvard School of Public Health NIEHS Center and the Boston University Superfund Basic Research Program, David Ozonoff, PI.
  • Purpose: To build a collaborative of academic and public health nurses committed to 1) increasing environmental health content in baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs and 2) developing requirements for competency in environmental health for nurses.
• University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Marine and Fresh Water Biomedical Sciences Center, Jeanne B. Hewitt, PhD, RN, Director, COEC Core.
  • Purpose: To provide conferences and other outreach activities on the national level designed to foster professional development of academic and practice nurses in the field of environmental health. Conferences were held in Boston 2005 and Milwaukee 2006. The next conferences are scheduled for Milwaukee 2010 and Boston 2012.

 Links

• MIT NIEHS Community Outreach and Education Core: http://cehs.mit.edu/COEP.html
• To view the website for the Greater Boston Environmental Health Nursing Collaborative: http://www.ehnursing.org/.
• To view the Community Outreach and Education Core website at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: www.uwm.edu/Dept/MFB/outreach/activities.html.
• For information about the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units: www.aoec.org/PEHSU.htm.
• To view the tornado of May 10, 2008 in Oklahoma where our NIEHS Childrens Center research takes place please see www.vascovich.com/tornado. The chat piles (mine tailings) are visible in the distance. Vaughn Wascovich is a Visiting Scholar/photographer associated with our NIEHS Center.
• To view news articles and lessons geared toward students grades 9-12 that appear in the NIEHS publication, Environmental Health Perspectives: www.ehponline.org/science-ed/.

Publications

Ann S.N. Backus, Jeanne Beauchamp Hewitt, Stephanie M. Chalupka. 2006.Using a Site Visit to a Contaminated Location as a Focus for Environmental Health Education for Academic and Public Health Nurses. Public Health Nursing. 23:5.  410-432.