Building a dialogue for environmental health promotion: UNC Exchange Project

Introduction: Increasingly public health professionals are embracing their roots and using ecological frameworks to address complex problems. Recent publications suggest expanding traditional environmental health practice, which may narrowly focus on protection, to incorporate a more comprehensive health promotion approach. UNC Exchange Project documented professional and community stakeholder perspectives and developed methods to promote cross-group dialogue and ethical action. Methods: Assessment involved 110 interviews with researchers, government administrators, attorneys, and community members. Materials to raise awareness about environmental health and justice include: community case studies; research summaries; short documentaries on environmental justice issues; and high school curricula. Discussion triggers, including Reader's Theater scripts and excerpts of films, are used to engage diverse stakeholders. A website (www.ExchangeProject.unc.edu) disseminates materials and facilitates learning. Dialogue sessions with professional/community stakeholders seek to generate and explore systems-level solutions. Results: Qualitative data identified differences among stakeholder perceptions of bureaucratic responsiveness and utility of research. Twelve case studies provide empirical evidence that substantiates community concerns surrounding government responsiveness and the effects of research activities. Pilot testing of materials and dialogue methods in 12 schools and community groups indicates success in both raising awareness of environmental health issues and willingness of participants to consider environmental ethics from new perspectives. Professionals participated in cross-group deliberations to increase collaboration for environmental health promotion including policy/systems change. Conclusion: Exchange Project data support the need for an environmental health promotion framework and suggest utility of the dialogic model to facilitate professional and community engagement in seeking system-solutions to environmental health problems.