Prevention Research Center: This Center is one of 24 CDC-funded Prevention Research Centers. Funded in 1994, the Center's mission is to translate health promotion and disease prevention research into strategies to enhance health. The goals are to:

• provide leadership in prevention research and community-based practice
• conduct research, program evaluation, and dissemination
• evaluate public health policies for health promotion and disease prevention
• collaborate with state agencies and local communities in training activities, and
• provide training for prevention researchers.

Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health: This Institute provides comprehensive services in occupational and environmental medicine. Occupational Patient Cares emphasize occupational illness, injury initial evaluation/consultation, and worker surveillance to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect workers from acute and chronic workplace exposures. Environmental services include maternal-child health, environmental health consultations with the WV Bureau for Public Health, and state and national initiatives in environmental health. In addition, the Institute provides support for the Workers' Compensation Division of the WV Bureau of Employment Programs through research, consultation, and management services.

WVU Office for Public Health Practice: The mission of the WVU Office for Public Health Practice is to bridge the gap between medicine and public health by identifying community-based learning opportunities which can serve as classrooms for a new generation of health science professionals.

Center on Aging: This Center acknowledges the challenges and opportunities associated with aging in rural Appalachia. The Center initiates, facilitates, and disseminates programs committed to:

• promoting quality of life in later years
• providing education, consultation, and service to communities throughout West Virginia
• sustaining independence and creative potential across the life span; and
• making policy recommendations for healthy aging in rural areas.

The Center conducts multidisciplinary gerontology-based policy research and maintains an international focus through student exchanges, international conferences, and networking groups aimed at establishing cross-cultural policy research and instructional projects.

Translational Tobacco Reduction Research Program: This office's mission is to translate research into real-world strategies that protect youth and adults from harm caused by tobacco.

Office of Social Environment and Health Research: This Office's mission is to conduct and publish policy-relevant research on specific aspects of the social environment that contribute to geographic, rural-urban, social class, racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities in health and disease. Current research focuses on:

• theories of health and uneven development
• economic development and chronic disease in Appalachia
• geographic inequalities in heart disease and stroke
• racial segregation, racism, and the health of African-Americans; and
• methods for spatial analyses of disease risk factors and outcomes.

The Office of Health Services Research (OHSR) has an eighteen-year history of involvement in health-related research activities. OHSR's primary goal is to facilitate improvement in the health and health care of West Virginians by providing applied research, planning and resource development, analytical data management, and other consultative services for health and related agencies throughout the State.

Alcohol Awareness Site: How much do you know about the effects of alcohol? The Community Health Promotion Program has developed this educational site to prevent alcohol abuse and to educate the public about alcoholism, treatment, and offers lesson plans for K-12. Take the quiz, too!