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  • A Note from the Editor, Part 2
  • Darryl B. Hood, PhD (bio)

I am honored to have been chosen as guest editor for the Proceedings from the 2012 State of Environmental Justice in America annual meeting, taking the form of a supplement to the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (along with papers from a Xavier University Health Disparities conference). Leaders from various sectors of the environmental justice community engaged in three days of free exchange of new ideas and new approaches to environmental justice in Washington, D.C. on April 3–5, 2012. This conference featured voices of experience, research, discussions, and thought-provoking dialogue. The program format featured needs and challenges of communities, governments, municipalities, tribes, faith-based organizations, and others with interests in environmental matters and environmental justice. The conference highlighted programs and collaborations that were effective as well as those that did not prove to be successful. Featured speakers represented academia, federal and state agencies, local governments, tribes, community groups, business and industry, public interest groups, and other entities. The interactive forum provided conference participants the opportunity to network with a variety of interests from diverse quarters. Conference participants were provided with approaches that produced positive results through innovation and collaboration.

The proceedings from this conference highlight the application of multidisciplinary system science approaches and methodologies to addressing the disparities working against communities of color. As you will see, such disparities are particualrly evident the disproportionate effects of exposure to environmental pollutants on people of color. The dialogue, scientific exchange, and collaborations resulting from this annual meeting will yield the expedient translation of our findings to the communities that we serve. In this issue we present a series of articles which, in part, describe

  • • Multidisciplinary approaches and systems methodologies that examine the cumulative impacts of environmental exposures on susceptible populations.

  • • How harmful and beneficial characteristics of the social and physical environment are differentially distributed by neighborhoods, how these conditions interact with other factors to compound the effects of environmental exposures, [End Page 112] and how such interactions may result in a greater impact of environmental exposures on vulnerable populations.

  • • Policy-resistant problems related to multilevel factors that affect environmental exposure screening and the multilevel pathways through which these factors ultimately influence screening behavior and health outcomes.

  • • Public health informatics approaches for collecting, managing, integrating, and analyzing public health within an environmental context.

  • • Emerging research trends in health disparities and environmental justice that highlight the need for investigators to be trained in trans-disciplinary and translational theories, paradigms, methods, and analyses in order to be better prepared to address public and environmental health issues.

Darryl B. Hood

Dr. Hood is a Professor of Neuroscience and Pharmacology and is affiliated with the Initiative for Environmental-Health Disparities and Medicine (http://www.mmc.edu/research/centers/research-centers/cmbn/), the National Health Disparities Research Center of Excellence (http://www.hdrcoe.org), and the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Meharry Medical College. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at The Brain Institute (http://braininstitute.vanderbilt.edu/people/affiliatefaculty.php#H) at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Hood may be reached at (615) 327-6358; dhood@mmc.edu.

Acknowledgment

Supported in part by RRO3032, S11ES014156, T32MH065782, R56ES017448-01A1, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative Grant, 3P20MD000516-07S1 and NRC-27-10-515. [End Page 113]

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