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Centers & ProgramsThe field of public health addresses a wide range of issues making it a natural for interdisciplinary collaboration. UCLA faculty and students reach beyond traditional academic boundaries to promote cooperative exchange across disciplines. The following is a list of interdisciplinary research centers sponsored by or associated with the UCLA School of Public Health.Center for Adolescent Health Promotion - (website) The UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion conducts studies and develops programs to improve the health and well-being of adolescents, with a special emphasis on projects that involve parents of adolescents. The Center is a partnership of the UCLA School of Public Health, the UCLA Department of Pediatrics, RAND (a non-partisan, private, non-profit research institute that conducts research to improve public policy), and local communities. The Center's multi-disciplinary faculty and staff represent the fields of public health, medicine, social and clinical psychology, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, education, sampling, statistics, and survey design. The Center is innovative in its approach to community service, partnering with ethnically and economically diverse communities in Los Angeles County to identify opportunities for the Center to provide technical support to community groups for program implementation and assessment. In addition, the Center has partnerships with the L.A. Unified School District, L.A. County Department of Health Services, and other local groups. For more information, call: (310) 206-1954, or e-mail: center@rand.org Center to Eliminate Health Disparities - (website) Academic studies and current events have converged to highlight the magnitude of potentially preventable health disparities among various population groups, and the urgency of addressing these disparities. The newly-established UCLA School of Public Health Center to Eliminate Health Disparities ("CEHD") identifies, investigates and addresses these differences in health status and disease burden. A key feature of the Center is its heavy focus on community based intervention research to mitigate observed disparities. The Center, directed by Antronette (Toni) Yancey, MD, MPH and Roshan Bastani, PhD, aims to advance understanding of health disparities across the life-span and foster multi-disciplinary research to improve the health of underserved communities. With a focus on Los Angeles County, the Center facilitates community and academic partnerships in research, trains new investigators in health disparities research, and assists community partners in implementing effective programs and advocating for effective policies to reduce disparities. The Center also endeavors to erode the barriers preventing more effective collaboration with local health departments and other key community partners engaged in the practice of public health. The CEHD is a collaborative "center without walls" that includes associates from academia, government, foundations and private/nonprofit organizations. For more information, please call (310)794 - 6197 or visit the CEHD web site (www.ph.ucla.edu/cehd). Centers for Environmental Quality and Health - (additional information) Human activity has transformed environmental health in profound ways. While earlier environmental problems were relatively local the problems of today are persistent and global. Continued exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment, global warming, population growth, habitat destruction and social/psychosocial factors have produced crises that require long term social and technical change for their solutions. The science and knowledge we bring to the looming environmental crises must evolve to enable prevention/control and protection of public health; the programs in the Centers for Environmental Quality and Health seek to expand our knowledge base, provide exceptional training of students to address these issues, and interact with Southern California communities to better interface between the University and the public. The Centers and Programs listed at the above link, including the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) (www.coeh.ucla.edu), comprise the Centers for Environmental Quality and Health. Center for Health Policy Research - (website) The Center for Health Policy Research was established in 1994 to apply the expertise of UCLA faculty and researchers to meet national, state, and local community needs for health policy-related research and information. Building on the extensive health policy research of School of Public Health faculty, the center was established to accomplish three missions: (1) to conduct research on national, state, and local health policy issues, (2) to provide public service to policymakers and community leaders, and (3) to offer educational opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Sponsored by the School of Public Health and the School of Public Policy and Social Research, the center provides a collaborative health policy research environment for UCLA’s leading professional schools and academic departments. One of the major projects is the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), one of the largest health surveys in the nation. The Center also sponsors major public service programs supported by extramural grants. Center for Environmental Genomics The UCLA Center for Environmental Genomics was established in May 2003 at the School in partnership with the Jonsson Cancer Center. The goal of the Center is to bring together experts from a variety of fields including cancer, environmental health, epidemiology, biostatistics, human genetics, pathology and pharmacology, to investigate the molecular mechanisms by which environmental agents such as air pollutants and radiation interact with genetic predisposing factors to cause disease. A better understanding of these processes will pave the way not only for targeted drug therapies, but also for targeted public health efforts to reduce environmental exposures in high-risk populations. Environmental genomics will help prevent disease rather than waiting to cure them once they have occurred. Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities - (website) The Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities was established at UCLA in 1995 to address some of the most challenging health and social problems facing children and families. The center’s mission is to improve society’s ability to provide children with the best opportunities for health, well-being, and the chance to assume productive roles within families and communities. Through a unique interdisciplinary partnership between UCLA departments, schools, and affiliated institutions, including the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, Nursing, Education, Law, and Public Policy and Social Research and the Department of Psychology, as well as providers, community agencies, and affiliated institutions, a critical mass of expertise has been assembled to conduct activities in five major areas: (1) child health and social services, (2) applied research, (3) training of health and social service providers, (4) public policy research and analysis, and (5) technical assistance and support to community providers, agencies, and policymakers. Center for Human Nutrition - (website) Established in 1996, the Center for Human Nutrition is a joint endeavor of the Schools of Public Health and Medicine. Participating faculty have their academic appointments in Medicine and/or Public Health. The center brings together faculty, postdoctoral research fellows, graduate students, and medical students to focus on the roles of nutrition and food in human health and disease and is closely affiliated with UCLA’s Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, which focuses on nutrition and cancer prevention.Programs include basic biological research; nutrition education for various constituencies including medical, graduate, undergraduate, and postgraduate students; participation in multicenter clinical trials for primary and secondary disease prevention through dietary intervention; and public health and international nutrition. The public health and international aspects of the programs include focus on nutrition surveillance of populations, nutritional status and food supply in developing and transitional countries, and nutrition and food policy. For more information, call: (310) 206-1987. Center for Public Health and Disasters - (website) The Center for Public Health and Disasters was established in 1997 to address the critical issues faced when a disaster impacts a community. The center promotes interdisciplinary efforts to reduce the health impacts of domestic and international, natural and human-induced disasters. It facilitates dialogue between public health and medicine, engineering, physical and social sciences, and emergency management. This unique philosophy is applied to the education and training of practitioners and researchers, collaborative interdisciplinary research and service to the community. The multidisciplinary center staff and participating faculty have backgrounds that include emergency medicine, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, gerontology, health services, social work, sociology, urban planning and public health. The center has recently been named as one of 15 Academic Centers for Public Health Preparedness by the Centers for Disease Control. The goal of these national centers is to improve competencies of front-line workers in public health to respond to public health threats. The Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Center Research - (website) The Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research (DCPCR) is a joint program of the School of Public Health and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA. Since its inception in 1976, the DCPCR has been a nationally and internationally recognized center of cancer prevention and control research. The DCPCR conducts rigorous peer-reviewed research in three major areas. The Healthy and At-Risk Populations Program focuses on the prevention and early detection aspects of the cancer control continuum. The program’s research portfolio encompasses a broad range of studies including investigations in tobacco control, nutrition, physical activity, breast, cervix, prostate and colorectal cancer screening, control of vaccine preventable cancers (liver, cervix), as well as expanding interests in economic and community level factors as predictors of cancer related outcomes. A central theme characterizing this program is a major emphasis on cancer disparities research, bringing cancer prevention and control to low-income, minority, and other socially and medically underserved populations locally, nationally, and internationally. The Patients and Survivors Program has as its major goal the reduction in avoidable morbidity and mortality among patients with cancer, long-term survivors of cancer, and family members/care givers of patients with cancer. The two main scientific thrusts of the program are: Quality-of-life outcomes along the developmental phases of the life span continuum (e.g., children, young adult survivors, adult cancer patients and survivors, elderly cancer patients and survivors), including late medical and psychosocial effects; and Quality of cancer care, its measurement and evaluation. The Molecular Epidemiology Program focuses on: (1) Primary prevention: to study environmental exposure (smoking, diet, infection, air pollution, etc.) and genetic susceptibility and cancer risk and to explore gene-environmental interactions on the risk of cancers; (2) Secondary prevention: to evaluate biological markers (somatic mutations and hyper-methylations of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes, gene copy numbers, etc.) for early detection as well as intermediate markers as surrogate end-points for chemoprevention; and (3) Tertiary prevention: to assess blood and tissue-based biological markers (tumor markers, SNPs, etc.) for cancer prognosis and survival prediction. Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center - (website) Injuries kill more people under the age of 45 than all other causes of death combined. The Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center (SCIPRC) is one of 10 centers in the U.S. that focus on the problem of intentional (homicide, suicide, abuse) and unintentional (motor vehicle crash, drowning, falls) injuries through three phases of injury control-prevention, acute care, and rehabilitation-addressed through its research, training, and community service components. The theme of SCIPRC is to research intentional and unintentional injuries among disadvantaged persons and other underserved populations. Highly focused, multidisciplinary community-based research projects are undertaken in collaboration with professionals from public health, medicine, the social sciences, law, and biomechanics affiliated with UCLA, the University of Southern California, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Sharp Memorial Hospital, Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, California State University (Los Angeles), the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner, the California State Department of Health Services, the California Office of Traffic Safety, Cal/OSHA, and the California State Coroners’ Association. |
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