The Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program from the Fogarty International Center (FIC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has the objective of supporting the development of institutions in the low or middle income countries (LMICs) that will serve as regional hubs for collaborative research, data management, training, curriculum and outreach material development, and policy support around high local and regional environmental and occupational threats. GEOHealth funding partners include NCI, NIEHS, NIOSH (CDC) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Our GeoHealth Hub has received funding to link a Research proposal (U01) with a Training proposal (U2R) with the purpose to create a research and training center for environmental health based in Lima, Perú, with links to neighboring countries Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. 
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​​Our team of environmental health researchers from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), Emory University, University of Georgia (UGA) Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Asociación Benéfica PRISMA (Proyectos de Informática, Salud, Medicina y Agricultura), and Universidad de Chile have extensive research and professional training experience in Perú. We have built this project based on a previous GeoHealth Hub planning grant, 15 years of Fogarty sponsored work in Perú ​and Chile through the International Training and Research in Environmental and Occupational Health program (ITREOH), as well as more than 20 years of strong collaborative research among JHU, UPCH and A.B PRISMA.

​The GeoHealth hub centered in Perú has the support of key Peruvian governmental institutions, including the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health/National Institute of Health. 
Our research and training projects are highly relevant to public health in Perú, as they enhance the capacity of scientists and professionals in the region to carry out research and provide data useful to policy makers in three challenging areas of research: household air pollution in relation to cardiovascular outcomes, outdoor air pollution in relation to cardiorespiratory diseases, and climate change in relation to future predicted health effects

Research

Our research projects respond to important  environmental challenges in Peru: household air pollution in relation to cardiovascular outcomes, outdoor air pollution in relation to respiratory diseases, climate vulnerability in relation to childhood diarrheal diseases, and Arsenic contamination and adverse birth outcomes.
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Training

-Our training activities provide educational opportunities for researchers from Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia to participate in short, medium, and long-term training in environmental and occupational health. As to date, more than 80 scholarships have been given to qualified applicants. 
-The GeoHealth Hub has contributed to the creation of a Master Degree in Environmental Sciences at the UPCH in Lima, Peru and gave 5 scholarships for its first cohort.  

News and Publications

- Go here for an article describing the work of the GEOHealth Hub network published on the Fogarty Newsletter.
-The GEOHealth Hub participated at the III Environmental Health International Forum in Lima, Peru on May 8, 2019.
-Diana Alcantara Zapata, GEOHealth Hub fellow and PhD student at the University of Chile, received an award for her work in prostatic diseases in hypoxic conditions at the ISEE/ISES Conference in Ottawa, Canada.