Project Summary/Abstract
The environmental justice (EJ) framework highlights the social, political, and economic
assumptions contributing to and producing unequal protection in EJ communities; highlighting
that understanding a community's perspectives is crucial to conducting impactful environmental
health research and literacy initiatives. There remains a need for novel research that facilitates
responsible reporting back of research results (RBRR) in a manner that raises data and
environmental health literacy (D/EHL) and supports communities striving for environmental health
and structural change. Despite recent progress in addressing longstanding EJ issues, the
bioethics literature focuses on: (a) harm, not beneficence or justice; (b) underestimates
opportunities to raise D/EHL among communities; and (c) commonly employs risk communication
strategies that are technical, and not based in a cultural model. The project goal is to create and
pilot a national model of report back that engages diverse rural and urban EJ communities to
ensure that RBRR reaches all populations in a manner tailored to their individual needs, including
culture, life stage, language, and design. Rooted in bioethics, the program focuses on how to
report back social determinants of health and soil and air quality data in rural and urban
communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution. Building upon trusted and
established long-term partnerships and leveraging existing datasets, this project addresses cross-
cutting research themes anchored in health equity, communication approaches, and the use of
data report back. Through partnerships with community-based organizations and local
government agencies, this project will address community concerns and social/EJ challenges in
both rural, predominately Hispanic mining communities and urban, Black/African American
communities. The specific aims of this proposal include: (1) Using an equity-centered community
design approach to develop different design types and identify what influences preferred report
back strategies, (2) Within the context of specific populations (cultural identity) and groups (life
stage), elucidate key D/EHL learning outcomes by design type, (3) Identify, evaluate, and mitigate
the unintentional consequences of environmental health report back by working with both rural
and urban EJ communities, and (4) Develop capacity building tools for RBRR, train knowledge
mediators/brokers and evaluate the efficacy of these tools to support the role of “environmental
counselors”.
