Environmental Health Sciences Research Center

University of Iowa College of Public Health

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Winners Selected in Statewide Radon PSA Poster and Video Contests; EHSRC Participates

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Each year in Iowa, the American Lung Association and the Iowa Department of Public Health, in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7 and the Iowa Radon Coalition host the annual statewide Iowa Radon Poster and Video Contests.

Iowa citizens ages 9-14 are invited to create a radon poster that will increase public awareness of radon gas and encourage others to test their homes. A committee will select the top five winning posters from throughout the entire state of Iowa to receive monetary prizes. The school that submits the most entries wins $200.

Concurrently, high school students are invited to submit entries to the Iowa Radon Video Contest, for which three top prizes are awarded.  As a member of the Iowa Radon Coalition, EHSRC Coordinator Nancy Wyland has participated in judging this event for the past three years in representation of the Center.

“The submissions are quite creative, and the students work hard on their entries,” Ms. Wyland offered.  It’s a great event that engages young adults in environmental awareness and the dangers of radon, which is particularly prevalent in Iowa.”

Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, radioactive gas produced by the natural decay of uranium in the soil. Exposure to elevated radon levels increases the risk of developing lung cancer. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and is the number one cause of death in homes, surpassing falls, poisoning, fires, choking, and drowning. As all Iowa counties are considered at high risk, this contest provides an opportunity to educate Iowa youth and the general public. By participating in this activity, students learn about radon and how to reduce their risk of exposure.

Wyland added, “Our Center has a longstanding research interest in radon and its environmental health impacts, so we’re proud to participate in this educational activity through our membership in the Iowa Radon Coalition.”

Poster Contest Winners can be viewed here:  https://www.lung.org/local-content/ia/radon-poster

The Top Ten Video Contest Winners can be viewed here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsIpNVMVEwiiT0UM6ax1cHFBVWkAD65G2

The EHSRC has a longstanding history of radon research, including studies of residential radon in Iowa, research on outdoor concentrations, and testing of monitoring devices. Recently, EHSRC Member Bill Field and Co-PI Ka Kahe (Columbia University Health Sciences) received an NIH R01 titled, “Residential radon exposure and stroke risk: the REGARDS study.”  This project will examine the association between radon exposure and stroke risk and to investigate whether geographic variation of radon concentration is related to the distribution of stroke rate in the U.S.

Dr. Ashutosh Mangalam received a Merit Award from the Department of Veteran Affairs

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Dr. Ashutosh Mangalam, member of the EHSRC, received a four-year VA Merit Award entitled, “Effect of Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis in the Pathobiology of Multiple Sclerosis”. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and affects around one million people in the US. The proposed studies will build upon recent findings from Dr. Mangalam’s laboratory showing that patients with MS have gut dysbiosis (altered gut microbiome compared to healthy controls). This study will test the hypothesis that gut dysbiosis promotes MS through enrichment of pathobionts which leads to leaky gut syndrome in addition to depletion of Equol producing gut bacteria. The latter are an important class of gut bacteria responsible for metabolizing phytoestrogen into beneficial compounds. Dr. Mangalam will utilize samples from MS patients and healthy control as well as from animal models of MS, to determine the mechanism(s) through which gut microbiome plays a role in the pathobiology of MS. Dr. Deema Fattal, a neurologist at the Iowa City VA and Dr. Kai Wang, a biostatistician in the College of Public Health are the co-investigators participating in the study. The focus of Dr. Mangalam’s team is to better understand the role of the gut microbiome in MS with a long term goal of manipulating the gut microbiome as a treatment option for MS patients.
This notice was first published by the University of Iowa Department of Pathology.

2020 Distinguished Faculty Lecture coming Dec 2

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The College of Public Health’s Distinguished Faculty Lecture will take place on December 2, 2020, from 12:30-1:30 P.M. This year’s lecture will be given by EHSRC member, Dr. Fred Gerr, and will provide an overview of historical and current occupational injury and illnesses among meat packing plant workers.

Dr. Gerr has served as a professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health for the last 18 years. He has been the director of both the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health and the Occupational Medicine Residency Training Program in CPH for many years. He has taught Occupational Health Practice, Occupational Medicine, and Interpreting Occupational Health Research. His research focuses on occupational and environmental risk factors for neurological impairment and musculoskeletal disorders. He has made significant contributions in the specialty of occupational and environmental medicine.

2020 CPH Distinguished Faculty Lecture | December 2 at 12:30 P.M.

Join via Zoom (https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/93121351181)

New framework helps researchers return results to participants

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Dr. Brandi Janssen, Director of the EHSRC Community Engagement Core, collaborated with colleagues at Emory, University of North Carolina, and University of New Mexico to publish a paper about reporting back to communities. It was featured as a paper of the month on the NIEHS Environmental Factor newsletter.  See write up below:

NIEHS grantees developed a framework and set of recommendations to help environmental health researchers return research results to study participants, a process called result report-back. According to the authors, report-back has the potential to improve environmental health education and communication and overall public health. Despite strong recommendations for report-back, researchers share results with study participants infrequently and inconsistently, the authors said.

To create the framework, the researchers used feedback from 35 community engagement practitioners who participated in a workshop at the 2018 NIEHS Partnerships for Environmental Public Health Annual Meeting. Workshop attendees responded to the prompt: “What are some specific issues that are relevant to reporting back research results to individuals or the larger community?” Participants then grouped similar responses and rated groups by importance to successful result report-back. The researchers used qualitative and quantitative methods to create a framework, called a concept map, to visualize relationships between responses.

Five themes emerged from this process. Listed from most to least important, the themes were: effective communication strategies, community knowledge and concerns, uncertainty, empowering action, and institutional review and oversight. Engaging community partners in the process of result report-back emerged as a unifying global theme. The researchers further examined responses and made recommendations to address challenges within and across themes.

Environmental health researchers and practitioners should address these five specific themes when planning and implementing their result report-back activities, say the authors.

Citation: Lebow-Skelley E, Yelton S, Janssen B, Erdei E, Pearson MA. 2020. Identifying issues and priorities in reporting back environmental health data. Int J Environ Res Public Health 17(18):6742.