The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Environmental Justice Working Group invites feedback on the approaches NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices can take to support research and capacity building efforts to advance environmental justice in the U.S. and globally. Additionally, Request for Information (RFI) responses will enable the NIH Environmental Justice Working Group to be responsive to Executive Order 14096 on Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, and to synergize NIH efforts with other Federal Agencies in a whole-of-government approach to advance environmental justice.
This RFI invites comments from communities with environmental justice concerns, scientific researchers, community-based organizations, consumer advocacy groups, service agencies, health care providers, policymakers and the public. This RFI seeks to identify gaps and opportunities pertaining to environmental justice research and training as well as capacity building needs in areas listed below and highly encourages responses on related topics that are not listed.
Transformative Environmental Justice Research and Action
- Multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary and team science approaches
- Development and testing of multi-level and structural level interventions
- Implementation research to support the uptake, scale-up, spread and sustainment of evidence-based interventions
- Community-led research approaches
- Inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge
- Environmental justice research and action in global settings including low-and-middle income countries
- Cumulative and generational impacts across the life course
- Methods and approaches directed at systems and structural level drivers
Scientific Infrastructure to Support Environmental Justice Research
- Strategies to collect, measure, organize and analyze diverse Big Data streams to improve the quality, linkages between, and harmonization of data
- Data infrastructure (e.g., standards, common data elements, repositories, platforms) needed to facilitate national and international data sharing in support of research
- Leveraging existing datasets, tools, and resources
- Development and testing of environmental exposure assessment methods, tools and sensors
- Adaptation of exposure assessment methods, tools and sensors in environmental justice settings
Community Partnerships to Address Environmental Injustices
- Identification and engagement of key partners in environmental justice research including, but not limited to, community-based organizations, federal, state, and local government agencies/programs and service sectors (e.g., departments of housing, transportation, agriculture, environment), locally owned businesses, and Tribal organizations and communities
- Strategies to engage in trusting and equitable partnerships with populations with health disparities that are at risk from the health impacts of environmental injustices
- Strategies to sustain community partnerships
- Approaches to develop community-based interventions and implementation strategies that address key barriers to the adoption and sustainment of these interventions
- Ethical issues and approaches related to environmental justice research and action with impacted communities
Diverse and Inclusive Workforce to Advance Environmental Justice
- Identification of approaches to reduce t raining gaps and ensure that opportunities to bolster or elevate environmental justice research capacity are accessible for all affected communities
- Strategies (specific activities and approaches) to increase diversity, equity, inclusiveness and accessibility of the scientific workforce conducting environmental justice research, in alignment with NIH’s interest in diversity, see?NOT-OD-20-031, see also?NOT-OD-22-019.
Science Communication and Dissemination of Research Findings
- Science communication approaches to disseminate research findings to affected communities, health care providers, educators, and policymakers
- Strategies for culturally and linguistically appropriate, transparent, equitable, and timely reporting back of research findings on environmental injustices
- Methods and opportunities for translating environmental justice research into environmental justice action (e.g., programs, policies)
Science, Research, and Data that would support Federal Environmental Justice Actions
- Data gaps and inadequacies related to environmental justice
- New or expanded data or knowledge sources that should be considered in Federal decision-making, including community generated data
- Ways that cumulative impacts, environmental justice, community-led science, population health, and health disparities research can better inform Federal policy actions