The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) is excited to announce the 15 winners for Phase 1 of the HHS Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDC) Innovator Award Competition. This competition was developed to identify innovative programs that address gaps in knowledge and provide solutions to reduce EDC exposure risk and improve women’s health.

Many chemicals, both natural and human-made, may mimic or interfere with the body’s hormones, known as the endocrine system. Called endocrine disruptors, these chemicals are linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, and other problems. Endocrine disruptors are found in the environment, food, and everyday consumer products. Some of the major known EDCs, such as bisphenols and phthalates, are in plastics. Others, including those found in cosmetics and pesticides, can pollute community water supplies.

The competition is divided into three phases. For Phase 1, HHS awarded submissions that identified a program with innovative approaches to reduce the associated exposure risks of EDCs. Phase 2 focuses on demonstrating effectiveness of the program by increasing knowledge and reducing the risk of EDC exposure. Lastly, Phase 3 participants will demonstrate that programs have been successfully replicated or expanded and have a sustainability plan.

The 15 winners of Phase 1 of the HHS Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDC) Innovator Award Competition are listed below:

1)    Black Women for Wellness – Los Angeles, CA

Submission: Curls and Conversation

Black Women for Wellness educates Black and African American women through their Curls and Conversation workshops and by providing educational materials for women to better protect themselves from EDCs in personal care products. This program creates a space for Black women and girls to discuss their hair stories, to provide healthy hair information to the Black Community, and to counter societally imposed burdens with a focus on the burden of EDC exposure.

2)    Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health – New York, NY

Submission: Advancing racial health equity for women and femme-identifying young adults through a clean beauty intervention

This program will study EDC exposures in personal care products experienced by young Black women and femme-identifying individuals. This program plans to focus on increasing awareness about the disproportionate EDC exposures experienced by women of color and investigate the change in urinary levels of phthalates, plasticizers, and environmental phenols after using clean products.

3)    Empowerment Resource Center (ERC) – Atlanta, GA

Submission: ERC Comprehensive Intervention Clinic

The Empowerment Resource Center services approximately 5,500 clients each year (60.1% African American) in various programs including clinical services, behavioral health services, health literacy programs, and capacity building programs. The ERC plans to design and develop a website dedicated to informing and educating Black and African American women on the risk of EDC exposure and their link to cancers and reproductive health issues.

4)    Girl Plus Environment – Atlanta, GA

Submission: The Black H(air) Initiative

This program plans to educate Black hairdressers about the harms of EDCs in hair products and the disproportionate impact they have on Black and African American women. This program plans to utilize a digital media campaign, pop-up shops, and a training toolkit to empower Black women hairdressers to protect themselves and their clients.  

5)    Hackensack University Medical Center – Edison, NJ

Submission: New Jersey Healthy Salon Workers Training (NJHSWT) to Reduce EDC Exposure Risk among Black Women

This program plans to create a cosmetology training program to educate and protect the health and safety of salon professionals and their clients. This training program plans to inform learners on the racial/ethnic disparities related to salon products, practices that lead to disproportionate EDC exposure among Black and African American women, and how learners can educate their future colleagues and clients.

6)    HairDays – New York, NY

Submission: HairDays Hair Artificial Intelligence Intervention Platform

This program plans to implement a hair intelligence platform that will provide product ingredient transparency, offer data-driven hair care recommendations, and present culturally conscious insights to promote safer practices.

7)    Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – Cambridge, MA

Submission: Digital storytelling to reduce the personal care product associated EDCs exposure and hormonally mediated disease risks for Black or African American Women

This program plans to use digital storytelling as an educational intervention to improve health literacy and create behavioral change. This program plans to educate on personal care product-based exposures and disparities in exposure among populations focusing on Black and African American women.

8)    Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – Cambridge, MA

Submission: Doulas as Environmental Health Educators: A Health Intervention to Reduce Endocrine Disrupting Chemical Exposure in Pregnancy and Associated Environmental Health Disparities

This program plans to implement an educational intervention that is doula-based and pregnant patient focused to address exposure to EDCs during the pregnancy and postpartum periods. This program plans to increase the environmental health literacy of doulas so they can counsel pregnant people on reducing exposure to EDCs and improve pregnancy outcomes.  

9)    Makery Thirteen – Atlanta, GA

Submission: Strengthening Black women’s ability to identify and replace personal care products manufactured with EDCs

This program plans to focus on raising awareness of EDCs to enable Black women to identify and replace personal care products manufactured with EDCs. This program plans to develop and pilot a culturally sensitive web-based educational program focused on the prevalence and risk of EDCs in personal care products targeted at Black and African American women.

10)    National Institute for African American Health – Richmond Heights, OH

Submission: EDC Awareness Campaign

This program plans to launch an awareness campaign to educate medical providers and targeted populations regarding the disproportional exposure of African American women to EDCs. This program plans to use social media and educational videos to increase consumer awareness, drive manufacturers to exclude EDCs from their products, and offer evidence-based approaches to minimize EDC exposure.

11)    New Jersey Black Women Physicians Association – Neptune, NJ

Submission: I See You Well, Sis

This initiative plans to build partnerships with personal care service providers including hair stylist, beauty influencers, aestheticians, beauty schools, dermatologist, and African American women focused organizations. This web-based program plans to focus on raising awareness and health education to reduce knowledge gaps and provide population-served resources and solutions to minimize EDC exposure among African American women.

12)    SafetyNEST – El Cerrito, CA

Submission: An Educational Online Platform for Preventing EDC Exposures in the Home among Black and African American Women

This is a digital platform designed for diverse audiences that builds environmental health literacy and encourages participants to take action to protect their health in the home. This project aims to reduce the incidence of preventable diseases linked to toxic chemical exposures among Black or African American pregnant women.

13)    Silent Spring institute and Resilient Sisterhood Project – Newton, MA

Submission: Product Options in Women-Engaged Research (POWER) Project

This program was designed to empower Black communities to reduce exposures to toxic chemicals from consumer product use. This program disseminates content on chemicals of health concern in consumer products to increase awareness and support behavioral change. This program has shared information on EDC exposures with thousands of mostly Black women and had their content viewed by more than 100,000 accounts, liked by nearly 10,000 accounts, and shared more than 1,700 times.

14)    The Chrysalis Initiative – Philadelphia, PA

Submission: Equity interventions for Black and African American women with breast cancer

This program has established equity interventions for Black and African American women with breast cancer, based on education and awareness. The program’s coaching/navigation and cancer equity assessment operations are able to enhance EDC outreach to directly impact the behaviors of women of color in the interest of maintaining breast health and responding to breast cancer diagnosis. 

15)    Emily Hilz – Austin, TX

Submission: Increasing black women’s awareness of endocrine disrupting chemicals in personal care products: there’s an app for that

This program plans to create a mobile phone application to increase awareness and reduce exposure to EDCs in personal care products. This program plans to empower women as consumers to reduce exposure risk by linking EDCs in their personal care products with their suspected adverse health outcomes.