Building Capacity to Reduce Arsenicosis in Bangladesh

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) During the 1960s and 1970s, UNICEF and other NGOs installed several million tube-wells in Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia to prevent water-borne disease that had been major causes of morbidity and mortality, not knowing that the groundwater in some parts of the region is naturally enriched in arsenic (As). It is estimated that >50 million people have been chronically exposed to As in Bangladesh alone. Thousands are experiencing arsenicosis, with As-induced skin lesions, skin and other internal cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular and neurological disease. To address this complex environmental health problem, Columbia University is heavily involved in multidisciplinary research (public health, geochemistry, hydrology) in Bangladesh, with support from the Superfund Basic Research Program and other grants. During the past six years, a small ITREOH program was developed at Columbia which has taught short courses in Bangladesh on topics including Environmental &Occupational Health, Geochemistry, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS);we also successfully recruited and trained PhD students at Columbia University, students whose dissertation research has involved field work in environmental health, and in geochemistry, in Bangladesh. We propose herein a small expansion of our ITREOH program to build capacity to reduce arsenicosis in Bangladesh. The proposed program will be greatly strengthened by partnership with the newly formed James P. Grant School of Public Health of BRAC University (BSPH), in Dhaka. The Mailman School of Public Health, and our ITREOH program, is proud to have played a major role in the creation and implementation of BSPH, which graduated its first MPH class of 25 students in January, 2006. A partner grant from BSPH, which is attached, proposes to establish a Regional Resource Center at BSPH in collaboration with the Steering Committee and Training Faculty of our ITREOH program.