Science Informing Community, Community Informing Science

Community-academic partnerships are well suited for translating complex public health issues, in locally relevant ways. The overall mission of the University of Michigan’s Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Core Center is to conduct and translate research across the lifestage to better understand the impact of environmental exposures on selected disease processes.  The three focal areas of research for the EHS Core Center are endocrine disruptors, epigenetic regulation and oxidative stress. The Center’s Community Outreach and Education Core (COEC) works closely with a Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB) to guide the work of the COEC.  Members of the SAB are residents of Detroit and Southeast Michigan who represent public agencies and community-based organizations.  

The COEC works collaboratively with the SAB to translate the Center’s research for community members and policy makers and simultaneously to inform Center research with community insights and priorities. We illustrate this bi-directional process with examples including: the development of maps and a research paper arising from a discussion of oxidative stress and the contributions of poor air quality and limited access to and intake of antioxidants-rich foods among SAB members and Center researchers; and community trainings to promote community engagement in order to improve environmental health decisions made by policy makers at the local, state, and federal level.  Our methods, tools, activities, and lessons learned can provide useful examples for other communities working to translate complex environmental health science into action.