Translation Core

TRANSLATION CORE: PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Translation Core (TC) supports the mission of Southern California Center for Children’s Environmental Health Translational Research (SC-CCEHTR) to leverage the existing scientific knowledge base to build diverse interdisciplinary teams and foster multidirectional stakeholder engagement. In addition to traditional children’s environmental health scientists, the TC brings together experts in communication, policy, dramatic arts, urban planning, land-use design, implementation science and program evaluation around the Center’s theme of Urbanism, Air Pollution, Children’s Health and Environmental Justice. The Translation Core will draw on the Center’s extensive scientific base from which to build diverse interdisciplinary teams and community partnerships around three Focus Areas: 1) Youth Engagement & Community Science; 2) Urban Design & Policy Solutions and 3) Communication & Public Knowledge. These are needed to translate research effectively and reduce the burden of air pollution-related disease, disability and environmental health disparities in children. The overarching goals of the TC are to increase environmental health literacy among the public and policymakers to inform action to protect children’s environmental health; collaboratively develop and disseminate key research findings to local and national audiences through innovative journalism; build knowledge and capacity of urban environmental justice communities to leverage scientific studies and resources; and provide tools and strategies to eliminate, reduce or mitigate adverse environmental exposures. A robust evaluation mechanism leveraging multidisciplinary expertise in communication, network analysis, and implementation science will assess efficacy and provide a strong basis for scholarship. The TC will build upon two decades of experience at the intersection of air pollution, children’s health and translation that has resulted in successful models to engage communities and decision-makers to address environmental health disparities related to traffic and goods movement in Southern California. Investigators have collaboratively created models to democratize the use of scientific information as a tool for action at the community and policy level. The TC will use this experience to develop and integrate novel methods to train residents, youth, and policymakers in air pollution science, collaborate with multiple stakeholders implementing an effort to assess and reduce toxic air emissions at a neighborhood scale, and expand our engagement program to include storytelling, participatory urban planning and theatre. In addition, we will leverage traditional and nontraditional communications techniques such as social media, geographically targeted email, newsletters and infographics to update stakeholders on current science and engage the power of communities to reduce environmental health burdens through policy change.