As of July 2021, Jennifer Horney, founding director of the Epidemiology program in the College of Health Sciences, was appointed to the Gulf Research Program, Enhancing Community Resilience (EnCoRe) Committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Gulf Research Program’s EnCoRe Program, focused on the gulf regions of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and the Cook Inlet region of Alaska, aims to establish criteria for selecting participating communities for a multi-year community engagement initiative to enhance health and community resilience at a local level. This process will involve examining previous and current community engagement nationally, and discussing the opportunities and challenges of applying the committee's selection criteria, along with the possible advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches.

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