Othello- 91探花Commons opened in mid-January in Southeast Seattle.

The 91探花 today opened the doors to , a new multifunctional partnership space in the heart of Southeast Seattle鈥檚 Othello neighborhood.

The 2,200-square-foot storefront will be used for community-informed teaching, learning, service and research. The Commons will be a place for the 91探花and community partners to build knowledge and capacity that supports positive actions to better the city and region.

鈥淎s a public university, a key part of the 91探花 is engaging with our communities. With the Commons, we will have incredible new opportunities to engage with the people we serve in South Seattle. I鈥檓 excited to see the impact of new spaces and increased interaction between the 91探花and the Othello community,鈥� said 91探花President Ana Mari Cauce.

Across the street from the Othello Link light rail station and about 9 miles from UW鈥檚 Seattle campus, the Commons will be used by multiple 91探花schools, colleges and programs for classes, meet-ups and other events connected to the greater Southeast community. The Commons can be divided into separate rooms for meetings, teaching, learning, leadership, and community and professional management.

Through cutting-edge research, student consulting teams, medical clinics, and high school student development programs, the 91探花long has participated in the daily lives of South Seattle residents, said Sally J. Clark, director of UW鈥檚 Office of Regional and Community Relations. Now, with the Othello- 91探花Commons space, there鈥檚 a place in the community for deeper exploration to occur.

鈥淭he Commons will prioritize sustained partnerships that embrace the UW鈥檚 commitment to learning from and with local communities,鈥� Clark said. 鈥淧eople should expect to see an array of uses in the space and even deeper engagement with community groups looking to tap the skills, knowledge and energy of 91探花students, faculty and staff. A little more purple and gold will look good at Othello.鈥�

Conversations with local residents informed the vision for the Othello- 91探花Commons, said Selam Misgano, UW-Othello Commons manager. Misgano is a dedicated, full-time manager who will work onsite and be the community go-to person.

鈥淭he University will continue to ask and to listen, and to shape programming that supports Southeast Seattle鈥檚 vision of sustaining an equitable, inclusive and welcoming community,鈥� Misgano said.

Initial funding for the project comes from the UW鈥檚 College of Education, Continuum College, Undergraduate Academic Affairs, College of the Environment, 聽School of Nursing, School of Social Work, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, the School of Public Health and the Alumni Association, as well as from the Gates Foundation and the Sunderland Family Foundation.

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Gabino Abarca used to spend his summers hauling 40-pound bags of apples up and down ladders in the tiny central Washington town of Mattawa.

Now, the 91探花 senior is conducting research on heat-related illnesses among agricultural workers in the Yakima Valley.

鈥淚 was now able to do fieldwork with a pen and paper instead of a ladder and bag,鈥� Abarca told a crowd of dignitaries gathered Wednesday for the official groundbreaking of the university鈥檚 new 290,000-square-foot Population Health Building, a facility that will house the Population Health Initiative launched by the 91探花in 2016.

鈥淚t means a lot to me to be working on issues that affect the community I grew up in and that my parents are still a part of,鈥� Abarca said. 鈥淚t gives me a lot of pride and pleasure to be doing work that may benefit this community.鈥�

The Population Health Initiative is a 25-year effort to create a world where all people can live healthier and more fulfilling lives. The 91探花defines population health as revolving around three major pillars 鈥� human health, environmental resilience, and social and economic equity.

鈥淭ackling the enormous challenges our world faces in supporting people in living healthier, longer, happier lives will require collaboration and a shared desire to learn and take action across disciplines and sectors,鈥� said 91探花President . 鈥淲e recognize the serious responsibility we take on in leading this effort and are deeply grateful to all the partners who join us in committing to this endeavor.鈥�

Over the next quarter century, the Population Health Initiative will expand the UW鈥檚 ability to turn the diagnosis of patients, populations and the planet into actionable policies, reforms, interventions and innovations 鈥� similar to the work Abarca shared.

The building, which is being built on the southeast corner of 15th Avenue NE and NE Grant Place, was made possible by a transformative $210 million gift from the , and $15 million in earmarked funding from the Legislature. The total cost of the project is estimated at $230 million.

鈥淎s a proud 91探花grad, it鈥檚 exciting to see the university鈥檚 continued emergence as an internationally recognized center of excellence for the study of population health. The greatest challenges in global health can鈥檛 be solved without an interdisciplinary mindset; an understanding of the social, economic and environmental factors that influence health; and an end-to-end commitment to using data to establish goals, track progress and evaluate impact,鈥� said Chris Elias, president, global development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a 1990 Master of Public Health graduate from the 91探花School of Public Health.

As part of the initiative, the new building will create a space for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation to better understand and improve all the factors that influence the health and well-being of populations here and across the globe. The , and portions of the all will be located in the building.

鈥淚 believe the 91探花is a place where I can have a real impact, work with the best talent in the field and contribute to the vision that informs the Population Health Initiative,鈥� Abarca said.

The 91探花will strengthen its commitment to reducing the diseases, injuries and health disparities that detract from and shorten the lives of far too many people both locally and globally. Recognizing that factors such as air pollution and access to clean water contribute to health disparities, the 91探花will work toward ways to meet the challenge of environmental sustainability, particularly in those communities most likely to be harmed by climate change. And the 91探花will strive to address the social and economic inequities that often leave communities here and around the world mired in poverty and poor health. More information is available at .

鈥淎t the 91探花, we have long believed that our world鈥檚 most troubling problems require complex, interdisciplinary solutions. To find these answers, Population Health brings together the University鈥檚 many areas of study, expertise and research 鈥� from public health to engineering to medicine to social work to sociology and many more fields,鈥� said. 鈥淭he building will serve as a central hub that convenes faculty, students and staff from these disciplines and many others.鈥�

The building was designed by The Miller Hull Partnership. Lease Crutcher Lewis is the general contractor. It is scheduled to be completed by 2020.

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鈥淗uman-animal medicine explores the unprecedented convergence of human, animal, and environmental health in an increasingly crowded and interdependent world,鈥� said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz of the 91探花School of Public Health. 鈥淩ecent global pandemics such as SARS and influenza H1N1 require that we look at new paradigms for healthy coexistence.鈥�

Rabinowitz of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and the Department of Global Health, recently arrived聽 from Yale University.聽 He directs the 91探花Animal-Human Medicine Project.

He and Dr. Ali Mokdad of the Department of Global Health and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation will lead separate studies in what 聽is called One Health, which integrates veterinary, ecological and medical sciences. Projects headed by Rabinowitz and Mokdad were two of the 81 proposals worldwide 聽to be awarded Grand Challenges in Global Health Exploration Round 11 Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 聽this week.

Rabinowitz鈥檚 team will investigate whether intestine-cohabitating microorganisms shared between livestock and children might be a key to correcting malnutrition in developing nations.

Malnutrition causes nearly half of the deaths in children under 5 worldwide.聽 The global burden of this disease is shouldered predominately in Africa and Southeast Asia and is difficult to alleviate.

In Kenya, East Africa, the researchers will to see whether children living in close proximity to domestic animals harbor gut microbes that can affect聽 nutritional status.

If this is the case, the researchers say, it鈥檚 possible that resetting the gut microbiome in livestock can be a sustainable intervention to improve children鈥檚 health and development.聽 Gut microbiome refers collectively to the tiny organisms residing and interacting in the lower digestive tract.

Rabinowitz and his colleagues at the UW, Washington State University, and Centers for Disease Control Kenya will conduct the research in an area of western Kenya w here more than 聽90 percent of the households own livestock.

鈥淒isturbance in the balance of bacterial communities in the intestines can make it hard for children to absorb nutrition and grow and develop normally,鈥� Rabinowitz said. 聽鈥淲hen humans and animals live closely together, there may be sharing of these microbial communities. As we work to improve childhood nutrition globally it is important to explore these relationships.鈥�

Also involved in the 聽project are Dr. Judd Walson of the 91探花Department of Global Health; Dr. Wes Van Voorhis of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the 91探花Department of Medicine; Dr. Guy Palmer of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health at Washington State University and a 91探花affiliate associate professor of global health; and Dr. Joel Montgomery of the 聽Centers for Disease Control-Kenya.

In a different project in Zambia, metrics specialist Mokdad and his team will amalgamate data on animals, the environment and people to measure their overall impact on human disease and mortality. This is the first attempt to integrate such data, which will include temperature and rainfall, and the physical condition and sales of animals and crops. The team hopes to generate an enhanced human health metric that incorporates the effects of animal health. They also plan to recommend improvements in data collection. They call the project 鈥淥ne Metric for One Health: A New Approach.鈥�

Grand Challenges Explorations funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in solving persistent global health and development challenges.聽 Successful projects have the opportunity to receive future support up to $1 million.