Engaging Communities to Identify and Address EHL Gaps: A Public Health Role for Participatory Risk Communication

Frequently, decisions about the informational components and delivery mechanisms required to promote effective environmental health literacy are made by such technical experts as toxicologists, chemists, and communication scientists. However, because sensemaking processes are both retrospective and collective, context must be a central component for understanding the particular information needs of communities and stakeholder groups. Individual assessments of and tolerance for environmental health risks are rooted in past and present experiences that are understood, refined, and reinforced through dialogue with others who have shared similar experiences. Thus, the promotion of environmental health literacy requires formative engagement with communities and stakeholders to better understand audience-specific information needs and channel preferences.

This presentation will describe stakeholder-driven methods researchers have used to pinpoint knowledge gaps and develop tailored communication activities for Superfund site exposures, watershed nutrients, and water supply decontamination. Each case deployed Community-Based Participatory Communication (CBPC) methods to develop and implement discussion triggers with various stakeholder groups. Because CBPC was designed specifically to engage low-literacy communities, the triggers themselves ranged from visual depictions of future land use scenarios to radio news pieces regarding the lifting of a “Do Not Use” water order. Subsequent group discussions of these triggers indicated real and perceived information needs within and across the groups, as well as variations in the preferred ways of receiving this information. The presenter plans to use audience response systems and/or multimedia snippets to provide examples and make the presentation interactive.