Center for Children’s Health Assessment, Research Translation, and Combating Environmental Racism (CHARTER)

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Center for Children's Health Assessment, Research Translation, and Combating Environmental Racism (CHARTER) aims to develop effective strategies to translate research findings of importance to children's environmental health to relevant stakeholders in the community, academia and among healthcare providers. The CHARTER Center is uniquely poised to foster excellence in research on children's environmental health that will nurture the next generation of scientists and provide information that can benefit the Atlanta community that has suffered from decades of environmental racism and has many of the highest levels of health disparities in the nation, including the health of its Black children. Building on extensive interdisciplinary research in children's environmental health and significant achievements in research translation, Emory University has partnered with faculty from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Center for Health and Risk Communication to advance the science of environmental health communication, media psychology, behavioral science, environmental health literacy and community engagement. Scientific findings will be broken into understandable, applicable, and actionable messages that result in direct and lasting impact on Black communities in the Atlanta region and beyond. Emory is proposing a model for the national coordinating center for the CEHRT network that will be a partnership of the Children's Environmental Health Network and Sharecare, Inc, a social healthcare platform that aims to organize and answer health questions of relevance to individuals and communities. Innovative communication products can then be used and/or adapted by stakeholders, at-risk populations, affected communities, and the clinical or public health community to improve children's health across the US and internationally. The overarching specific aims of CHARTER are to 1) Serve as a catalyst for the development of innovative interdisciplinary translational research and communication strategies to improve children's environmental health, 2) Continue to develop and innovate science and discovery relevant to the impact that environmental exposures have on children's health to meet the needs of families in Atlanta and beyond, and 3) Foster and enhance partnerships between university researchers and communities, locally and nationally, to decrease environmental exposures and effectively translate impactful scientific findings, with the goal of reducing environmental racism and enhancing the health of children.