IDRC AWARDS CA $1 MILLION TO ECOHEALTH RESEARCH NETWORK: International Development Research Centre

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IDRC AWARDS CA $1 MILLION TO ECOHEALTH RESEARCH NETWORK

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Ottawa, June 17, 2005 ─ Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced today that IDRC is awarding CA $1 million to a network of Latin American, Caribbean and Canadian researchers to reduce exposure to toxic environmental poisons and improve collective human health in the Latin America and Caribbean region. Nine networks had initially competed for the award in a process lasting more than a year.

Jean Lebel, IDRC’s Director of Environment and Natural Resource Management, announced the award at the Health and Environment Ministers’ Meeting of the Americas (HEMA) in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

“This initiative will contribute to strengthening an emerging community of practice in ecohealth that is concerned with understanding the linkages between human health and the environment, ” said Jean Lebel. “The winning proposal is well-conceived and has an experienced team behind it that has strong ties to existing networks.”

This innovative network – called a Community of Practice in Ecohealth (COPEH) – involves five academic institutions and three nongovernmental organizations in seven countries. The COPEH approach uses transdisciplinary research to bring health and environment concerns into the mainstream of development planning, changing policy and spurring action with a blend of scientific, social, and political information.

Network members are:

Université du Québec à Montréal, Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la biologie, la santé, la société et l’environnement (CINBIOSE), Canada;
Instituto de Salud y Trabajo (ISAT), Lima, Peru;
Fundación Salud, Ambiente y Desarrollo (FUNSAD), Ecuador;
Instituto de Biofísica, Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil;
Centro de Estudios de la Mujer (CEM), Santiago, Chile;
Centro de Investigación Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (INSP), México,
Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Universidad de Brasilia, Brazil, and;
Instituto Regional de Estudios en Sustancias Tóxicas (IRET), Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica.

CIHR organized the peer-review panel that selected the winning proposal out of four research networks, comprising 34 institutions across 14 countries. In late 2004, it chose four of these to refine proposals to compete for the full COPEH grant.

Three other finalists included a network of Canadian, Cuban, Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian groups, proposing to research eco-health in coastal communities. A Canadian, Cuban, Mexican, Brazilian, Ecuadorean, Columbian and U.S. proposal aimed to equip communities to face disasters, vector-borne diseases, and health impacts of global change. And, a network spanning Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay proposed a strategic program to reduce urban wastes’ effects on the environment and human health.

“The proposals have been wonderfully diverse and imaginative,” Mr. Lebel told the HEMA conference. “But they share a common aim – to build capacity for ecohealth research that benefits disadvantaged populations throughout the hemisphere.”

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is one of the world’s leading institutions in the generation and application of new knowledge to meet the challenges of international development. For more than 30 years, IDRC has worked in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies.

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For information:

Kristin Plater, IDRC, (613) 236-6163, poste 2570 - kplater@idrc.ca
Andrea Puppo, IDRC, (011-598) 99580933, (until June 18²⁰⁰⁵⁾

2005-06-17

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