Two additional Environmental Health Education and Resource Centershave been created in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region in the North, and Babylon, southeast of Baghdad in the central region, to extend the influence of the program and increase activities in those regions.
Program Description
Recognizing that Iraq is currently facing acute and chronic environmental health problems and given the complexity and magnitude of these problems as well as lack of resources and trained personnel, the Stony Brook Environmental Health Program has been developed to create a strong, multidisciplinary country-wide environmental health program in Iraq. In order to achieve its goals, the program has created three Environmental Health Education and Resource Centers (EHERC) in Iraq. These centers were established in Mosul, for the northern region, Baghdad for the central region, and Basrah, for the southern region. Two additional centers in Erbil and Babylon were created to extend the influence of the program.
Through the building of a strong infrastructure and providing capacity enhancing tools, the program aims at enabling Iraqi universities to develop and conduct modern environmental health research and training, help with preventive intervention programs and to become specialized resource centers available to the rest of the country.
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Short-term Goals:
1. Build EHERC infrastructure:
Create physical presence of the Centers
Hire and train staff for each Center
Provide capacity building tools for training, teaching, research and intervention services
2. Provide short term activities and services
3. Establish collaboration with international universities
4. Create outreach programs to enhance and encourage Iraq's environmental health efforts
Long Term Goals (Post Program):
1. Stimulate national interest and participation in the Centers
2. Allow Centers to sustain themselves and expand their impact and activities
3. Make the Centers the national focal point for training, research and preventive health services in the field of environmental health
4. Establish ongoing collaboration and communication between the Centers and Stony Brook University
