David A. Turcotte, MS¹, Stephanie M. Chalupka, EdD, RNCS, CETN², and Linda Silka, PhD¹. (1) Center for Work, Family and Community, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, One University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854, (978) 934-4682, David_Turcotte@uml.edu, (2) Department of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854

Addressing the Challenges of the Built Environment in an Immigrant City

David Turcotte, Stephanie Chalupka, and Linda Silka

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Older industrialized cities face many challenges in improving their built environment. This paper will report on a community-based approach to environmental health and the built environment. Lowell, Massachusetts, a city of 100,000 is a diverse immigrant city with a long legacy of inadequate zoning, poorly controlled industrial development, and poorly constructed, lead contaminated housing. Many who live here come from other countries. We have used this diversity to build a set of programs intended to address the problems with the built environment. These initiatives include (1) a HUD-funded Healthy Homes project designed to prepare home visitors to work with culturally diverse families on environmental problems in the home, (2) the adaptation of an European-designed scenario workshop approach to involve Lowell’s residents in a planning process to produce a new 20-year master plan with a strong focus on healthy and sustainable building development, and (3) the development of a partnership between a university and a city to focus on how green building ideas can be adapted to work in a low income, diverse community. The objectives of the presentation will be to assist audience members in identifying cost-effective, culturally appropriate strategies for improving the built environment in poor communities and to assist audience members in identifying strategies for building partnerships that link environmental health to planning initiatives that often exclude a focus on health-related impacts.

Learning Objectives:

• Demonstrate four methods to work more effectively with community-based organizations and culturally diverse families on environmental problems in the home.
• Show how a diverse urban community can develop a democratic and inclusive process that leads to a common vision of a healthy and sustainable future
• Illustrate four ways that a university and a city can work together to build a healthy community.

Keywords: Challenges and Opportunities, Environmental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.