October 9th, 2018 | RESEARCH
Environmental health literacy (EHL) has recently been defined as the continuum of environmental health knowledge and awareness, skills and self-efficacy, and community action. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of university scientists, partnering with local organizations, developed and facilitated EHL trainings with special focus on rainwater harvesting and water contamination, in four communities with known environmental health stressors in Arizona, USA. These participatory trainings incorporated participants’ prior environmental health risk knowledge and personal experiences to co-create training content. Mixed methods evaluation was conducted via pre-post participant surveys in all four trainings (n = 53). Participants who did not demonstrate baseline environmental science knowledge pre-training demonstrated significant knowledge increase post-training, and participants who demonstrated low self-efficacy (SE) pre-training demonstrated a significant increase in SE post-training. Participants overall demonstrated a significant increase in specific environmental health skills described post-training. The interdisciplinary facilitator-scientist team also reported multiple benefits, including learning local knowledge that informed further research, and building trust relationships with community members for future collaboration. We propose contextual EHL education as a valuable strategy for increasing EHL in environmental health risk communities, and for building academia-community partnerships for environmental health research and action.
Document
2018-Davis-Ramirez-Increasing-EHL-through-Contextual-Learning-in-Communities-at-Risk.pdf
Team Members
Leona Davis, Author, University of ArizonaMonica Ramirez-Andreotta, Author,
Jean McLain, Author, University of Arizona
Aminata Kilungo, Author, University of Arizona
Leif Abrell, Author, University of Arizona
Sanlyn Buxner, Author, University of Arizona
Citation
Identifier Type: DOI
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102203
Publication: Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health
Volume: 15
Number: 10
Funders
Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL)
Award Number: 1612554
Related URLs
Tags
Access and Inclusion: Low Socioeconomic Status
Audience: Administration | Leadership | Policymakers | General Public
Discipline: Ecology | forestry | agriculture | Health and medicine
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research Products
Environment Type: Community Outreach Programs | Public Programs