Center for Native American Environmental Health Equity Research
Project Number5P50MD015706-09
Former Number2P50ES026102-06
Contact PI/Project LeaderMACKENZIE, DEBRA Other PIs
Awardee OrganizationUNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIS CTR
Description
Abstract Text
SUMMARY: OVERALL - Center for Native Environmental Health Research Equity
Nearly half of the Native American population of the United States lives in 13 western states in proximity of an
estimated 161,000 abandoned hardrock mines, with more than 4,000 being abandoned uranium mines.
Because of their reliance on natural resources to maintain traditional diets, lifestyles, customs and languages,
these tribal communities have direct and frequent contact with metal mixtures from abandoned mine sites,
creating exposures through multiple pathways including inhalation, drinking water, and ingestion of foods either
directly or indirectly contaminated by migration of the wastes. Exacerbating these exposures are disparities in
infrastructure, including services like safe drinking water and solid waste management. Lack of effective solid-
waste management resulted historically in burning and open dumping of solid waste, but with the ever-
increasing amounts of plastic entering the waste stream, the low-temperature, incomplete combustion of this
process, and the environmental degradation through weathering, our tribal partners are increasingly concerned
about the emissions of toxic degradation products of plastics into their environment. The concerns over how
the combined toxicants from these processes and the metals we have already linked to immune dysfunction in
these communities have led to this Phase 2 Native EH Equity proposal. We have found metals mixtures result
in different exposure profiles across our three partnering indigenous communities: Navajo, Apsáalooke, and
Cheyenne River Sioux. And while we see commonalities in immune dysfunction across these communities
that can contribute to disparities in cancer and other chronic diseases, the metals exposures alone do not
account for all of the risk. Therefore, in this Phase 2 Center we will develop an understanding of the emerging
additional plastic degradation contaminant profiles, evaluating constituents and distribution of microplastics and
other degradation products, along with emissions from extractive industries that could add to these classes of
chemicals, in both stationary and mobile exposure assessments. We will monitor grazing patterns of livestock
and their resulting exposures through air and consumption of plants and water, as well as stationary in-home
and mobile monitoring on people during their normal activities to evaluate exposure components and pathways
contributing the greatest risk with the ultimate goal of developing mitigation strategies at individual and tribal
levels to inform decisions and policies to reduce the risks linked to increasing cancer and other chronic disease
disparities in these communities. The resulting fine-scale predictive models, ground-truthed through
monitoring, and the integration of multiple exposure streams will provide a resource to not only inform policy,
but aid clinicians in identifying early risks to develop prevention strategies as well.
Public Health Relevance Statement
NARRATIVE: OVERALL - Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research
Indigenous communities in the US experience substantially higher rates of chronic diseases and an ever-
increasing prevalence of cancer compared to the US population overall with decades of industrial mining, in
these communities that rely heavily on natural resources resulting in disparately greater exposures to the
waste from 161,000 abandoned hard rock mines remaining within 10km of 600,000 tribal members. Disparities
in solid waste infrastructure and continued use of low-temperature burning results in incomplete combustion of
ever-increasing amounts of plastics in the waste stream now adds exposure concerns due to microplastics and
other plastic degradation products that now combine with and exacerbate the metals exposures, further
increasing risks for cancer and other chronic diseases. This Center will identify these emerging tribal
contaminants and evaluate exposure:disease relationships to develop mitigation strategies.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
CFDA Code
307
DUNS Number
829868723
UEI
G389MFAYJNG9
Project Start Date
01-August-2015
Project End Date
31-March-2025
Budget Start Date
01-April-2023
Budget End Date
31-March-2024
Project Funding Information for 2023
Total Funding
$1,358,095
Direct Costs
$940,452
Indirect Costs
$417,643
Year
Funding IC
FY Total Cost by IC
2023
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
$667,000
2023
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
$691,095
Year
Funding IC
FY Total Cost by IC
Sub Projects
No Sub Projects information available for 5P50MD015706-09
Publications
Publications are associated with projects, but cannot be identified with any particular year of the project or fiscal year of funding. This is due to the continuous and cumulative nature of knowledge generation across the life of a project and the sometimes long and variable publishing timeline. Similarly, for multi-component projects, publications are associated with the parent core project and not with individual sub-projects.
No Publications available for 5P50MD015706-09
Patents
No Patents information available for 5P50MD015706-09
Outcomes
The Project Outcomes shown here are displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institutes of Health. NIH has not endorsed the content below.
No Outcomes available for 5P50MD015706-09
Clinical Studies
No Clinical Studies information available for 5P50MD015706-09
News and More
Related News Releases
No news release information available for 5P50MD015706-09
History
No Historical information available for 5P50MD015706-09
Similar Projects
No Similar Projects information available for 5P50MD015706-09