# Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA · 2024 · $230,250

## Abstract

The Community Engagement Core (CEC) within the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center
(SWEHSC) is integral to developing and maintaining the relationships that allow SWEHSC to meet its mission
of determining the human health impacts of environmental exposures among underserved populations in arid
environments experiencing climate change. The CEC addresses structural environmental inequalities by
facilitating multidirectional and culturally-anchored engagement between SWEHSC researchers, the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and Southwestern educators, public health professionals, community
members, and policy makers. The SWEHSC is in the arid Southwest, a region that is home to high proportions
of Indigenous, Latinx, and rural communities living in understudied environmental conditions that include
exposures to unique toxicants. Primary health concerns in these communities include cancer, diabetes,
autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and respiratory disease that can result from exposures to extreme
heat, airborne pollutants, pesticides, forest fire smoke, dust storms, and drinking water contaminants such as
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and arsenic. The CEC vision is to combine respect for Indigenous science,
traditional ecological knowledge, “funds of knowledge,” and citizen observation/inquiry with modern scientific
advances to engage Indigenous, Latinx, and rural communities and to design materials and programs to work
towards environmental justice for these communities. The CEC applies this vision through four aims: 1) using
multi-directional communication strategies to assure that SWEHSC investigators address the environmental
health (EH) issues of greatest concern impacting our target communities; 2) ensuring the dissemination of key
research findings to our target communities so that they may better protect their health; 3) evaluating the
effectiveness of our risk and safety communication and report-back strategies to ensure that these
communications effectively promote public health; and 4) assuring self-determination by training the next
generation of EH scientists from these communities. In realizing these aims, the CEC equips the next generation
of EH scientists with the necessary engagement skills and scientific knowledge to address structural
environmental inequalities affecting the desert Southwest populations and to achieve sustainable EH justice.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10851000
- **Project number:** 5P30ES006694-27
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
- **Principal Investigator:** Paloma I Beamer
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $230,250
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1997-04-01 → 2028-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10851000

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10851000, Community Engagement Core (5P30ES006694-27). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10851000. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*