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Community Outreach & Education Core
The mission of the Community Outreach and Education Core (COEC) is to translate the Center’s scientific
expertise into meaningful environmental health science programs
for the community; to collaborate with extant community
education and outreach programs that increase the public
awareness of environmental health problems; to develop long-term
sustainability for these extant COEC/Community collaborations;
and to continue the Center’s leadership role in the dialogue
between environmental scientists and the community.
The organization of the COEC allows form to follow function. It
may be readily seen that southeast Texas is not one “community,”
though the inhabitants share the same eco-system. In order to
target real people with real problems, the COEC’s three-division
structure allows it to flexibly approach different neighborhoods
or population groups identified by concern (cancer survivors,
asthmatic children). In this way, the tangled complex of social
and health problems of the southeast Texas region can, in a
focused way, be teased apart where possible, and in-depth,
innovative responses can be created, each backed up by the
Center’s research expertise. Obviously, the African-American
residents of the Fifth Ward in Houston — while affected by
environmental challenges — have a different perception of their
immediate needs than a group of professional women who are
breast cancer survivors in Galveston. Similarly, at-risk
middle-school children in Galveston share the same shoreline as
the membership of the Environmental Defense Fund; all have a
concern with the environment, but not in precisely the same way.
Even neighborhoods twenty or thirty miles apart share differing
environmental burdens. (The number of high-ozone days in Houston
and along the Ship Channel is not similar to the low number of
days in Galveston.) No single “delivery” of the translation of
scientific information to the community would work in these
different settings. The NIEHS COEC in its differing divisions
responds creatively to these differing identified populations.
However, each of these divisions works closely together to
provide an integrated approach to environmental health problems.
A COEC faculty group, informally called the “junior faculty work
group,” was begun in 2000 representing each division’s directors
and staff (although senior scientists are often in attendance).
This working group meets monthly and has as its aim the
translation of Center science in the context of on-the-ground
community environmental problems. The group relies upon the
resources of each division, Center scientists, and the resources
of other NIEHS COEC divisions or center scientists. This
multi-division surround of community problems and science
programs allows the COEC to approach problems, particularly
those of at-risk children, in an organized, sensitive, and
flexible way.
The activities of the COEC are focused within three divisions,
each with its own area of expertise and definition of the
community to be served.
To support the COEC in the implementation of its vision, the UTMB NIEHS
Center appointed a Community Advisory Board in 1997. The members of the
board, each representing different areas of the community: education,
government, and medical or environmental research, have become active in
promoting the Center's visibility and helping us to form the necessary
community networking contacts so that an awareness of problems, ideas,
information and materials can pass between varying groups in the region
in an efficient and timely manner. Several board members have become
rich resources for the Center.
COEC Highlights
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