Lessons from a community effort to find institutional support for environmental health research

The Pine River watershed in Gratiot County, Michigan has been environmentally stressed for more than a century. The effects of logging, chemical plant manufacturing, refining of petroleum, and a host of other manufacturing and agricultural processes has left a huge area of central Michigan contaminated with DDT, PBB, heavy metals, low-level radioactive compounds, and host of other potential health hazards. This presentation will chronicle the efforts of the stakeholders in a historically contaminated community on the Pine River in the middle of Michigan to negotiate the technical and social impediments to developing and valid, reliable, and meaningful public health assessment. The assessment has been requested by residents repeatedly since the 1978 closure of the Velsicol Chemical plant in the community that emitted DDT and fire retardants. Particular attention is paid to the confluence of community, commercial, and scientific concerns about the contamination and the conflicts of interests in the development of a community based health assessment. This report focuses not merely on innovative efforts to assess exposure to hazardous materials (such as analysis of infant blood spots to measure fetal body-burden), but also evaluates methods and institutional structures to empower local residents to participate in the initiation, design, and disseminate of research utilizing the assistance of faculty and students from a college. The goal is both to define the proper role of citizens in health research and to suggest ways for citizens to find local expert and institutional support that will supplement and influence the regular public health structure.