Anti-Racism, Environmental Health, & Justice
May 18, 2022
The 2022 NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers (EHSCC) Community Forum was an opportunity to collectively check in with community partners across the country who are active within the EHSCC Community Engagement Cores (CECs). Through academic-community partnerships, CECs bring environmental health research findings to community members and ensure environmental concerns that affect those communities, guide EHSCC research. The May 18 forum, hosted virtually by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, highlighted community partners who are on the frontlines addressing environmental and climate injustices and featured discussions on how to advance anti-racism and environmental justice within environmental health research and education more broadly.
Featured Presentations
| TIME | SESSION | DESCRIPTION |
| 1:05pm– 1:25pm | NIEHS Anti-Racism Initiatives | Trevor K. Archer, PhD, is the Deputy Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Dr. Archer assists Rick Woychik, PhD, NIEHS and National Toxicology Program Director, in the overall management of the institute. Dr. Archer supports the formulation and implementation of plans and policies that carry out the NIEHS scientific mission and research goals. As a NIH Distinguished Investigator, Dr. Archer has made multiple original scientific contributions in the areas of epigenetics, stem cell biology, chromatin Structure and gene transcription. Dr. Archer also provides strategic leadership for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility programs at NIEHS. |
| 1:25pm– 2:10pm | Introduction to Ant-Racism | Almetta Pitts, MSW, LSWAIC, is the founder and principal consultant of ATTEMLA Consulting. Almetta supports individuals, communities, organizations, and companies who seek to interrupt the “status quo” of workplace wellness. She facilitates brave spaces that cultivate tough conversations around intersectional racial equity, anti-Blackness racism, diversity, equity, and belonging founded within the coined methodology of somatic wellness & anti-racist practices ™ (SWAP). Almetta will lead us in a collective check-in where we can acknowledge the impacts the syndemic has had on our overall health and develop a “toybox” of approaches that CEC and community partners can utilize to heal and advance anti-racism across our work. |
| 2:20pm – 3:00pm | Liberation Science: Using Science for Environmental Justice & Liberation | Sacoby Wilson, PhD, MS, is a Professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland-College Park and Director of the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH). Dr. Wilson has over 20 years of experience as an environmental health scientist in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-based participatory research, water quality analysis, air pollution studies, built environment, industrial animal production, climate change, community resiliency, and sustainability. He works primarily in partnership with community-based organizations to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research to action. Dr. Wilson will give a presentation about Liberation Science and how it can be used to build communities of resistance within community-academic research partnerships. |