The Public Health Exposome: A Population-Based, Exposure Science Approach to Health Disparities Research

Paul D. Juarez, Patricia Matthews-Juarez, Darryl B. Hood, Wansoo Im, Robert S. Levine, Barbara J. Kilbourne, Michael A. Langston, Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan, William L. Crosson, Maurice G. Estes, Sue M. Estes, Vincent K. Agboto, Paul Robinson, Sacoby Wilson and Maureen Y. Lichtveld
Additional contact information
Paul D. Juarez: Research Center on Health Disparities, Equity, and the Exposome, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, 66 N. Pauline, Memphis, TN 38105, USA
Patricia Matthews-Juarez: Research Center on Health Disparities, Equity, and the Exposome, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, 66 N. Pauline, Memphis, TN 38105, USA
Darryl B. Hood: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Wansoo Im: Vertices, Inc., 317 George Street 411, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
Robert S. Levine: Department of Family & Community Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN 37208, USA
Barbara J. Kilbourne: Department of Sociology, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN 37209, USA
Michael A. Langston: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan: National Space Science and Technology Center, Universities Space Research Association, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA
William L. Crosson: National Space Science and Technology Center, Universities Space Research Association, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA
Maurice G. Estes: National Space Science and Technology Center, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA
Sue M. Estes: National Space Science and Technology Center, Universities Space Research Association, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA
Vincent K. Agboto: Department of Family & Community Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN 37208, USA
Paul Robinson: Department of Ophthalmology, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
Sacoby Wilson: Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MA 20742, USA
Maureen Y. Lichtveld: Department of Global Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, 1440 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-30

Abstract: The lack of progress in reducing health disparities suggests that new approaches are needed if we are to achieve meaningful, equitable, and lasting reductions. Current scientific paradigms do not adequately capture the complexity of the relationships between environment, personal health and population level disparities. The public health exposome is presented as a universal exposure tracking framework for integrating complex relationships between exogenous and endogenous exposures across the lifespan from conception to death. It uses a social-ecological framework that builds on the exposome paradigm for conceptualizing how exogenous exposures “get under the skin”. The public health exposome approach has led our team to develop a taxonomy and bioinformatics infrastructure to integrate health outcomes data with thousands of sources of exogenous exposure, organized in four broad domains: natural, built, social, and policy environments. With the input of a transdisciplinary team, we have borrowed and applied the methods, tools and terms from various disciplines to measure the effects of environmental exposures on personal and population health outcomes and disparities, many of which may not manifest until many years later. As is customary with a paradigm shift, this approach has far reaching implications for research methods and design, analytics, community engagement strategies, and research training.

Keywords: exposome; public health; health disparities; trans-disciplinary; exposure science; social-ecological; combinatorial analysis; CBPR; geographical information systems; PPGIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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