title: Then and now: lessons learned from community- academic partnerships in environmental health research.
abstract: On the occasion of the 50thanniversary of the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences we reflect on how environmental research incorporating community members as active partners has evolved, benefited communities and advanced environmental health research. We highlight the commitment to community partnerships in the aftermath of the 2010 Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill, and how that commitment helped improve science. We provide examples of community-academic partnerships across the engagement spectrum. Finally, we offer suggestions to improve the community engagement in order to cultivate more long partnerships and better scientific research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA.
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lichtveld
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grattan
authors.affiliation: Hiram College, Hiram, OH, USA. camundorf@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8780-9122
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mundorf
mesh_terms: D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D004190:Disasters; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D054585:National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (U.S.); D014481:United States
keywords: Citizen science; Community-academic partnerships; Community-based environmental health research; NIEHS