Community Outreach and Dissemination Core (CODC)
The primary goal of the CODC is to serve as the mechanism by which bidirectional communication takes place between and among our community partners, research scientists, and local health officials. The CODC has been active since May 2010 in establishing the basis for a CBPR partnership between Gulf fishing communities and the consortium of academic institutions participating in this proposal. The charge to this Core is to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience of communities affected by the oil spill by:
- Developing and maintaining the Gulf Coast Community Coalition as the mechanism to communicate stakeholder input to consortium members as well as to translate and disseminate findings to the broader community.
- Developing methods of engaging stakeholders in the development of outreach, intervention, and educational programs based upon scientific findings of the research projects.
- Developing dissemination strategies to translate these findings to Gulf Coast communities affected by the oil spill, to include local residents, health professionals, and policy makers.
- Developing and implementing outreach and educational programs and materials related to risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication.
- Developing strategies to provide answers to health-related questions from impacted individuals or communities.
- Evaluating study processes and results to determine success in reducing vulnerability and increasing the resilience of communities involved