A HEALS Pilot Project
Cecilia Alcala, PhD, MPH, Instructor, and Sofia Curdumi Pendley, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor—both from the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai—joined local partners for the kickoff of the Community-Led Air Quality Monitoring in the Lower East Side project. This initiative, funded by the Mount Sinai Center on Health and Environment Across the LifeSpan (HEALS) Pilot Program and supported by the NIEHS, is being carried out in partnership with the Sixth Street Community Center.
The project is designed to empower Lower East Side residents by co-developing a community-based participatory research (CBPR) effort focused on air quality. Residents will lead data collection, analysis, and research translation to help address longstanding environmental health disparities in the neighborhood.
The kickoff meeting, held on February 1, 2025, at the Sixth Street Community Center, brought together approximately 20 attendees. It served to introduce the project team, build local interest, and begin identifying priority areas for monitoring and community action.