# Community Engagement Core > **NIH NIH P42** · UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE · 2020 · $73,330 ## Abstract Abstract: Residents of Kentucky suffer disproportionately from many chronic diseases and exposure to toxics in their environment. Dangerously high rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer in Kentucky have been well documented. Our areas of focus are West Louisville, encompassing six zip codes within the larger Metro area. In West Louisville neighborhoods, 61.1% of residents are black/African Americans and 55% of children under age 18 live in poverty. Our preliminary assessments suggest that residents living near the Lee’s Lane landfill in West Louisville, Rubbertown, a heavily industrialized residential area, and Oakdale, a neighborhood near Churchill Downs, have high in VOC exposures. The Louisville medical community has a long history of bi-directional interactions with active community involvement in health care delivery and research. These interactions date back to the creation of the Marine Hospital in 1823 to treat riverboat workers, continues in the 1970s with partnerships with industries to establish the ongoing surveillance program of workers with hepatic hemeangiosarcoma associated with their exposure to vinyl chloride, and more recently is highlighted by the partnership between Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness along with UofL and other community partners to fight obesity and chronic disease under the CDC Communities Putting Prevention To Work (CPPW) grant and to mitigate the effects of air pollution exposure by planting trees under the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities’ Partner-for-Places grant. The overarching goal of the CEC is to support community and academic scientists/educators in transdisciplinary research that incorporates best practices in community engagement by facilitating beneficial and bidirectional interactions between residents, industry, policy makers, and Superfund Center interdisciplinary investigators. We will achieve this through the following Specific Aims: 1. Augment community and investigator capacity for transdisciplinary research focused on exposure to Superfund contaminants through facilitating Community Environmental Quality Resource Exchange Sessions (CEQRES) and establishing a Sustainable, Institutionalized Collaborative Framework through the Louisville Superfund Center Community Advisory Board (LSC- CAB). 2. Support and facilitate project- and core-specific community engagement activities 3. Support a community project aimed at mitigating the effects of exposures to Superfund VOCs 4. Assess change in perception and knowledge of community participants and investigators as a result of engaging in specific Superfund Center activities. Through regular public forums and board meetings, support of specific Superfund research projects, and training, community engaged intervention, assessment of community and investigator perceptions and knowledge, and substantive interactions with other project Cores particularly the Research Translation Core ... ## Key facts - **NIH application ID:** 9904681 - **Project number:** 5P42ES023716-04 - **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE - **Principal Investigator:** Lauren Heberle - **Activity code:** P42 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.) - **Funding institute:** NIH - **Fiscal year:** 2020 - **Award amount:** $73,330 - **Award type:** 5 - **Project period:** — → — ## Primary source NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9904681 ## Citation > US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9904681, Community Engagement Core (5P42ES023716-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9904681. Licensed CC0. --- *[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*