222440 Assessing and Communicating Benefits and Risks of Eating Fish with Subsistence-Fishing Ethnic Communities

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 : 1:20 PM - 1:35 PM

Michael Carvan III, PhD , Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center/WATER Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Katie Gajeski, BA , Community Outreach and Education Core, Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Jeanne B. Hewitt, PhD RN , NIEHS-funded Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Reinhold Hutz, PhD , Department of Biological Sciences & Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
David H. Petering, PhD , Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry & Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Subsistence fishing is a common strategy for ethnic communities to obtain high quality protein that partially compensates for economic inequalities that they experience. At the same time, subsistence fishing provides a way to transmit cultural traditions across generations. While fish is a source of high quality, low fat protein and health-promoting omega-3-fatty acids, fish also contain varying concentrations of environmental contaminants. Our Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center has conducted several fish benefit/risk communication projects with ethnic communities in Milwaukee and Anishinaabe tribal members. For our current project, we collaborated with community partners to understand patterns of fishing, cooking, and consumption of fish (by species, size, and specific waterways) through key informants and focus group participants in the urban African American community. We used these data together with existing published data to estimate the concentration of omega-3-fatty acids and data from creel surveys, provided by the Department of Natural Resources, to estimate the uptake of mercury and other contaminants for men, women of childbearing age, and children. We describe the process and outcomes of estimating benefits and risks of eating locally caught fish for community members. In addition, we discuss multiple methods that we have employed to develop culturally sensitive communication processes and tools that involve community members, scientists, communication and outreach specialists, and videographers.

Learning Areas:
Environmental health sciences
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the general process for estimating the benefit and risk of fish consumption. 2. Discuss 2 approaches that have been used to engage ethnic communities in culturally sensitive fish benefit/risk communication.

Keywords: Environmental Justice, Risk Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a Research Scientist with appropriate credentials (PhD) and experience to do fish risk assessment and public health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.