Grant Writing Workshop for Environmental Justice


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tants, health care providers, and environ-
mental health researchers. The program
seeks to ensure that the communities
involved have a demonstrable role in iden-
tifying and defining problems and risks
related to environmental health and in
shaping future research approaches to such
problems.

The purposes of this orientation meet-
ing were to share information among
grantees and NIEHS staff, to allow
grantees to learn of common or similar
approaches in their projects, and to begin
developing a communication network.
Following a welcome and introduction by
Anne Sassaman, director of extramural
research and training, and Allen Dearry,
program administrator, the principal inves-
tigator of each grant described his or her
project, including its history, objectives,
and methods.

Dianne Quigley at Clark University, in
Worcester, Massachusetts, in collaboration
with Native Americans for a Clean
Environment and Citizen Alert Native
American Program, is working to increase
the awareness of Native American commu-
nities exposed to radiation contamination
in their environment. They are designing
and implementing a plan for risk manage-
ment and prevention at the Western
Shoshone Nation near the Department of
Energy's Nevada Test Site and at the
Cherokee Nation at Sequoyah Fuels,
Oklahoma, a uranium processing facility
that was in operation for 23 years.

Education modules of two types will be
implemented: community modules, creat-
ed exclusively by Native American collabo-
rators; and health education modules, cre-
ated by scientists and health care provider
trainers. Relevant materials and strategies
will be shared with other Native American
communities.

Katsi Cook at The State University of
New York, Albany, in collaboration with
St. Regis Mohawk Health Services, is
designing community-based strategies for
environmental health education, outreach,
and training in the Akwesasne Mohawk
community, which is adjacent to a Sup-
erfund site in the Great Lakes Basin-St.
Lawrence River watershed. Environmental
hazards have resulted from the rapid transi-
tion from an agricultural to an industrial
environment. Cook is a nurse midwife and
a member of the Mohawk community,
and the project is implemented, evaluated,
and disseminated explicitly through com-
munity members.

Michael Belliveau and Carlos Porras
from Citizens for a Better Environment, in
collaboration with the Labor Occupational
Safety and Health Program and the Center
for Occupational and Environmental
Health at UCLA and the Community
Health Foundation, aim to educate com-
munity members and health care
providers, promote adoption of pollution
prevention measures, and establish a com-
munity-based strategy for reducing com-
munity and worker exposure to environ-

mental pollutants in southeast Los Angeles,
a highly industrialized area home to a low-
income population, which is approximate-
ly 90% Hispanic and Latino. A major
objective of this project is to analyze data
to confirm the list of environmental pollu-
tants already known and to determine
whether gaps exist in the data. Environ-
mental health issues will be determined
and addressed. Education of community
members and medical care providers will
be emphasized. Sources of health hazards
will be identified, and strategies will be
developed to attempt exposure reduction.

Grant Writing Workshop for
Environmental Justice
An instructional workshop for writing a
grant application in response to request
for applications (RFA) ES 95-002,
"Environmental Justice: Partnerships for
Communication," was held at NIEHS on
December 9. This RFA is a reannounce-
ment of the initiative that resulted in three
awards earlier this year (see previous story).
At this workshop, NIEHS staff discussed
the fundamentals of how to write an NIH
grant application. Open to the public, the
workshop attracted 30 participants, who
spent the day learning about this RFA and
the NIH grant process.

Allen Dearry, program administrator,
explained the mission of NIEHS, particu-
larly as it relates to environmental justice,
and then addressed this RFA specifically.
The objectives, eligibility criteria, and
review process were described. The three
current grantees, Dianne Quigley, Katsi
Cook, and Michael Belliveau, then present-
ed their projects and discussed how they
put together successful applications for the
first round of competition. They discussed
personnel interactions among community
members, health care providers, and
researchers, and provided the audience with
some helpful hints on how to bring people
together for successful collaborations.
Diane Becker, director of the Center for
Health Promotion at Johns Hopkins
University, and a member of the Special
Review Committee that evaluated the
applications submitted in the first competi-
tion, explained her impressions of the
review process. The review committee is
composed of a 1:1:1 ratio of community
representatives, health care providers, and
environmental health scientists. After the
presentations Dearry led the group through
a lesson in filling out a PHS 398, the offi-
cial NIH grant application form. Carolyn
Winters, grants management specialist,
reviewed budgetary considerations and
needed assurances and certifications.
General questions and answers and individ-
ual discussions rounded out the session.

140 Environmental Health Perspectives