Oxidative stress in your everyday life

The Community Outreach and Education Core (COEC) is part of the NIEHS-funded University of Michigan School of Public Health (UM SPH) Environmental Health Science (EHS) Lifestage Exposure and Adult Disease (LEAD) Center. The COEC fosters enhanced understanding among community members, policymakers and public health decision-makers concerning the role of environmental exposures in disease. The EHS LEAD Center specifically focuses on how environmental exposures over the lifecourse are linked to asthma, early life development, diabetes, and cancer through three pathways (epigenetic regulation, oxidative stress, and endocrine disruptors). Detroit and Southeast Michigan, in particular, are disproportionately impacted by environmental exposures (e.g. air pollution) and have reduced access to resources that might protect against the negative effects of those exposures (e.g., access to foods rich in antioxidants), increasing vulnerability to negative effects of those exposures. Over the lifecourse, these increased environmental exposures and increased vulnerabilities contribute to racial, ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities. The COEC develops a series of materials for different audiences, including health professionals, policy makers, and the general community. With the guidance of the COEC Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB) a video was developed specifically for the general community. Understanding the impact of the environment on health is important for the entire population despite socioeconomic status. The video developed used comprehensible terminology to describe oxidative stress, the protective factors of oxidative stress (i.e. antioxidants), and the higher burden of exposure/lack of protection racial minority and low socioeconomic status communities face.