The CHARMED Community Engagement Core (CEC) serves as the conduit for community engagement and research, fostering synergy between communities, CHARMED investigators, and other stakeholders to fulfill a shared mission of reducing community-identified environmental health concerns. The CEC builds upon existing partnerships in the Maryland region (DelMarVa, Washington D.C., and southern Pennsylvania) focused on community, social, and environmental ,
determinants of health. Community concerns include historical and ongoing challenges with air, water, and soil quality, solid and hazardous waste management, aging infrastructure, transportationenergy infrastructure, goods movement, and land use and development.
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The CHARMED CEC convenes the Environmental Justice Partnerships Board (EJPB) – a space for knowledge sharing and active collaboration between community members, community-based and nonprofit organizations, local schools, academic research, and governmental and regulatory groups around environmental health and justice. Community partners host graciously host monthly EJPB meetings to discuss current environmental health and EJ concerns in the MD region.
The CHARMED CEC helps to:
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Train the next generation of leaders to conduct responsive, environmental health community-engaged research (CEnR);
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Increase faculty capacity to understand and conduct translational CEnR;
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Sustain existing and newly established, multi-directional CEnR partnerships;
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Deliver educational and translational materials that improve environmental health literacy among community and stakeholder groups; and
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Co-generate knowledge that can reduce community environmental exposures and ultimately improve community health outcomes.
