OU researchers have received a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a research center to address children’s cumulative health impacts from agricultural and non-chemical exposures. This grant will create the Children’s Environmental Health Center in the U.S. Southern Great Plains, which includes Oklahoma and Texas. The center will focus on mitigating the chemical and non-chemical stressors that affect school absenteeism caused by gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.
This collaborative center will be under the direction of Changjie Cai, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health in the Hudson College of Public Health on OU’s Health Sciences Center campus; Diane Horm, Ph.D., director of the Early Childhood Education Institute at OU-Tulsa; and Dan Li, Ph.D., from the University of North Texas College of Education.
Research has shown that children in underserved, rural and agricultural communities face increased health risks due to the combination of agricultural pollutants in the air, water and soil, as well as non-chemical stressors such as poverty and limited access to health services. This project addresses an urgent need to investigate the cumulative health impacts of chemical and non-chemical exposures for children in these communities to help keep children healthy.
“At the Early Childhood Education Institute, it has always been our goal to advance and support equity for all children through research,” Horm said. “The opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Cai, Dr. Li and others on this grant to establish the Children’s Health and Social Vulnerability Index will allow us to better assess children’s health disparities in rural schools.”
