Improving Environmental Health Literacy and Justice through Environmental Exposure Results Communication
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Dept Soil Water & Environm SciUniv Arizona, Mel & Enid Zuckerman Coll Publ Hlth
Issue Date
2016-07-08Keywords
biomonitoringexposure assessment
environmental health literacy
environmental justice
hazardous waste
contextual model of learning
Metadata
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MDPI AGCitation
Improving Environmental Health Literacy and Justice through Environmental Exposure Results Communication 2016, 13 (7):690 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public HealthRights
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Understanding the short-and long-term impacts of a biomonitoring and exposure project and reporting personal results back to study participants is critical for guiding future efforts, especially in the context of environmental justice. The purpose of this study was to evaluate learning outcomes from environmental communication efforts and whether environmental health literacy goals were met in an environmental justice community. We conducted 14 interviews with parents who had participated in the University of Arizona's Metals Exposure Study in Homes and analyzed their responses using NVivo, a qualitative data management and analysis program. Key findings were that participants used the data to cope with their challenging circumstances, the majority of participants described changing their families' household behaviors, and participants reported specific interventions to reduce family exposures. The strength of this study is that it provides insight into what people learn and gain from such results communication efforts, what participants want to know, and what type of additional information participants need to advance their environmental health literacy. This information can help improve future report back efforts and advance environmental health and justice.ISSN
1660-4601Version
Final published versionSponsors
NIEHS [R01ES017514, P42 ES04940]Additional Links
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/7/690ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3390/ijerph13070690