Increasing Water-Related Environmental Health Literacy: Children as Agents of Change

Native American communities are at particular risk for exposure to environmental contaminants due to subsistence diets, and spiritual and cultural practices that increase their likelihood for contact with contaminated soil and water. Existing and past interventions focus primarily on education of the community through the adult population. This project is a partnership between the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee (CEHSC), Crow Agency Elementary School, Montana State University (MSU) and Little Big Horn College. Working in collaboration with Apsáalooke community members, this study aims to develop and pilot an intervention to increase children’s water-related environmental health literacy skills and to transfer that knowledge and skills to others in their schools, families, and communities. Through a system of modules and activities involving art and science, based in the Apsáalooke culture, the children will obtain water-related information, which they then use in a practical application and/or dissemination task. We will discuss the development of our program to educate Apsáalooke (Crow tribal) children about the relationship between the water-related environmental issues and human health through teachings grounded in Apsáalooke culture, thereby increasing culturally-based environmental health literacy of children and in turn their social networks. The presentation will explain the development of our outreach methods and evaluation, highlighting efforts to address this issue through community-based participatory research approaches.  The intervention developed in this project may be adapted and tested in other tribal communities to address environmental health disparities