ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IN HARLEM

This application seeks support for the development of interdisciplinary collaborative research aimed at the major environmental health problems of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations in New York City. The Columbia University Health Sciences Campus, and its affiliate, Harlem Hospital, are situated in North and Central Harlem, respectively. This institution is ideally situated to become an NIEHS P30 Center whose central theme will focus on environmental health problems in New York City's African-American and Hispanic minorities. Specifically, we request support herein to provide logistic, personnel and pilot project funding for studies related to four themes of research: neurotoxicity and treatment of lead exposure, asthma/pulmonary disease, reproductive toxicology, and environmental aspects of cancer. Most investigators assembled in this proposal have spent their careers focused on environmental health problems which are prevalent in the Harlem community, including lead poisoning, asthma, lung cancer, and reproductive disorders. Those investigators who have not been active specifically in these areas, e.g., neurobiologists in the Department of Pathology and geochemists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Institute, have been added to this center because their strong basic research activities lend themselves to collaborative interdisciplinary studies of these diseases.