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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Pamela R. Davidson, Sociology, George Washington University, 801 22nd Street, Suite 409 Phillips Hall, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, (202) 994-1129, pdavidso@gwu.edu and David F. Goldsmith, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, George Washington University, 2100 M Street NW, Suite 203, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052.

With the rise of the environmental justice movement in the 1980-1990s, local communities have become increasingly involved in documenting toxins, environmental hazards, and health conditions. Despite skepticism regarding expert-driven, scientific research, communities' need for scientific knowledge has driven many to form partnerships with academic, public health, and research organizations. Government and other funding institutions encourage such partnerships, leading to an increase in collaborative efforts between grassroots organizations and health researchers. Such developments coincide with an increased recognition in environmental health of the field's limited ability to account for complex community health problems. Partly in response to this, researchers have called for a broadening of scientific methodology to integrate lay concerns into scientific or risk-based assessments. In this paper, we examine the dilemmas related to participatory community health research (PCEH) in the context of a minority neighborhood exposed to leaking underground chemical sources. We argue that the benefits of PCEH lie in its potential for co-learning between the community and academic epidemiologists. PCEH provides a means to review and communicate evidence from a local risk perspective to make connections between environmental toxins and health neglected by standard public health approaches. Problematically, epidemiological findings may not support a community's preconceived notions of ‘causation' leading to a rejection of the findings and related community resistance. If approached from the perspective cooperative-learning, however, PCEH may help to stimulate the goals of community empowerment by making science more relevant for local communities, thereby motivating a strong commitment to long-term changes to address environmental health issues.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the potential conflict between risk perception and health risks as detrmined by population-based case-control studies
• Assess the relevance of co-learning
• Discuss the potential for co-learning for empowering communities affected by environmental toxins

Keywords: Environmental Justice, Interactive Communication

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation