title: Conducting environmental health research in the Arabian Middle East: lessons learned and opportunities.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Arabian Gulf nations are undergoing rapid economic development, leading to major shifts in both the traditional lifestyle and the environment. Although the pace of change is brisk, there is a dearth of environmental health research in this region.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We describe challenges and successes of conducting an environmental epidemiologic study in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Gulf nation in the Middle East, with an inter-disciplinary team that includes in-country academic and government collaborators as well as U.S. academic collaborators.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We present several issues, including study and data collection design, exposure assessment, scheduling and time coordination, quality assurance and quality control, and institutional review board protocols. These topics are considered in a cultural context. Benefits of this research included building linkages among multinational, interdisciplinary team members, generating data for local environmental decision making, and developing local epidemiologic research capacity. The Middle Eastern culture of hospitality greatly benefited the project team.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cultural differences impact multiple aspects of epidemiologic research and should be respectfully addressed. Conducting international population-based environmental research poses many challenges; these challenges can be met successfully with careful planning, cultural knowledge, and flexibility. Lessons learned are applicable to interdisciplinary research all over the world. The research conducted will benefit the environmental and public health agencies of the UAE and provide the nation's leadership with country-specific environmental health data that can be used to protect the public's health in a rapidly changing environment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA. Yeatts@unc.edu
authors.forename: Karin B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Yeatts
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: El-Sadig
authors.forename: Habiba I
authors.initials: HI
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.forename: Fatma
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Al-Maskari
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Shu Wen
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Reeves
authors.forename: Ronna L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Christopher A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: William E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Funk
authors.forename: Maryanne G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Boundy
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Leith
authors.forename: Barry
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Popkin
authors.forename: Jacqueline Macdonald
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rusyn
authors.forename: Andrew F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Olshan
mesh_terms: D004782:Environmental Health; D007391:International Cooperation; D012106:Research; D014479:United Arab Emirates; D014481:United States