WORKSHOP ABSTRACTS

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The training workshop will target how the Crescent Region Covering Kids & Families Coalition transitioned into a community-academic initiative and became the Crescent Region Collaborative Coalition. The integration of the coalition and the collaborative problem solving framework into the Tulane University Center for Environmental Health, Leadership, and Strategic Initiatives was an evolutionary step based upon the need for Global Environmental Health Sciences faculty to garner skills and knowledge relating to community engagement, community engaged research, and community based participatory research. As these skills are increasingly in demand at academic institutions, it was a natural transition to embed these essential components across funded projects. In 2012 representatives from five urban and rural Southeast Louisiana parish community-based groups participated in a coalition leadership team planning meeting designed to identify elements of an effective community-academic partnership to address health disparities more holistically, rather than from a silo driven approach. Realizing that stakeholder investment is maximized when community leaders and the academic investigative team commit to the benefits to be derived and contributions to be made by the partnership, the Crescent Region Collaborative was formed. Key elements of partnership building, social advocacy, and navigation to services by way of the Coalition have been closely explored to uncover programmatic facilitators and potential barriers that can significantly impact program sustainability and future planning. Workshop Abstracts: Environmental Health Disparities & Environmental Justice Meeting 3 Community-Academic Engagement through Community Monitoring by Neighborhood Assessment Teams (“A” Teams) and Production of CBPR Manual Presenters: Andrea Hricko (University of Southern California) Carla Truax (University of Southern California) Jessica Tovar Abstract: Collaboratively with its community partners in THE Impact Project, USC has developed several neighborhood assessment teams, or A-Teams, which involve community/EJ group staff and volunteers (paid with stipends) to count traffic and measure ultrafine particles, following several training sessions by USC and UCLA scientists who are members of the NIEHS-funded Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center (Center). This “street science,” coupled with new USC and UCLA epidemiologic studies linking traffic exposures to higher levels of asthma and reduced lung function, as well as low birth weight and premature babies, helped build the science base for this work. The A-Team members have presented their findings to community members and policymakers. But perhaps more importantly, they have become empowered by their A-Team efforts because they report a deeper understanding of the science and are more comfortable sharing their results through public speaking. The EJ and community groups also have offered extensive training on environmental health and community organizing issues to the team members. Most of the members are Latinas, speak Spanish as their first language, are mothers of children with asthma, and some have only a high school education. They have become effective community leaders advocating for clean air policies through these communityacademic collaborative efforts. The COEC and the community organizations have produced an instruction manual on community-based research, featuring case studies of their experiences. It is in English and Spanish, and intended to serve as a resource for other organizations. Collaboratively with its community partners in THE Impact Project, USC has developed several neighborhood assessment teams, or A-Teams, which involve community/EJ group staff and volunteers (paid with stipends) to count traffic and measure ultrafine particles, following several training sessions by USC and UCLA scientists who are members of the NIEHS-funded Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center (Center). This “street science,” coupled with new USC and UCLA epidemiologic studies linking traffic exposures to higher levels of asthma and reduced lung function, as well as low birth weight and premature babies, helped build the science base for this work. The A-Team members have presented their findings to community members and policymakers. But perhaps more importantly, they have become empowered by their A-Team efforts because they report a deeper understanding of the science and are more comfortable sharing their results through public speaking. The EJ and community groups also have offered extensive training on environmental health and community organizing issues to the team members. Most of the members are Latinas, speak Spanish as their first language, are mothers of children with asthma, and some have only a high school education. They have become effective community leaders advocating for clean air policies through these communityacademic collaborative efforts. The COEC and the community organizations have produced an instruction manual on community-based research, featuring case studies of their experiences. It is in English and Spanish, and intended to serve as a resource for other organizations. Participants in this workshop will experience an A-Team training: they will handle the P-Trak portable air monitors (taking measurements outside), review field protocols and use them to count traffic (as displayed on a video monitor), record real-time P-trak measurements and see a demonstration of P-Trak graphing techniques, as well as review the instruction manual regarding CBPR techniques for investigating traffic pollution. Workshop Abstracts: Environmental Health Disparities & Environmental Justice Meeting 4 Cumulative Impacts and Children’s Environmental Health Presenter: Amy D Kyle (University of California – Berkeley) Topics: Translation, Communication, Dissemination Cumulative Risk Exposure Abstract: Objective: to examine cumulative impacts with children’s environmental health. Objective: to examine cumulative impacts with children’s environmental health. Many children face disparities considered under the rubric of cumulative impacts: environmental exposures, interaction of environmental exposures with psychosocial factors, and effects at the individual and community level. In addition, children are often more susceptible to effects of such exposures, and early life exposures contribute to disease throughout the life course. Consequently, the most impacted populations may be children in environmental justice communities or other such contexts. The session has four parts: 1. technical update on the evolution and current status of methods for assessing and addressing cumulative impacts/risks (20m presentation; 10m questions and comments) 2. technical update and discussion of current findings about the susceptibility of children to cumulative impacts (20m presentation; 10m questions and comments) 3. discussion of needs to better assess and address cumulative impacts and children’s environmental health (20m) 4. identification of key next steps (10m) This is based in part on a symposium in January 2013 in Sacramento involving the western children’s environmental health research centers and pediatric environmental health specialty units. Critical points are to incorporate additional needs of children and significance of early life exposure in approaches to cumulative impacts and health disparities. This conference would pose a great opportunity to get feedback and coalescence of thinking about best approaches. A long term goal would be to bring together researchers and activists from the children’s environmental health and the environmental justice/health disparities/cumulative impacts (and risks) communities for further collaboration and investigation in the future. Workshop Abstracts: Environmental Health Disparities & Environmental Justice Meeting 5 Enhancing Engagement in Community Research with Theatre of the Oppressed Presenters: John Sullivan (University of Texas Medical Branch – Galveston) Bryan Parras (T.E.J.A.S. – Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services) Topics: Community-Engaged Research Translation, Communication, Dissemination Cumulative Risk Exposure Abstract: Workshop will offer overview of basic concepts / techniques used in applying Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) to Community Engaged Research, particularly with reference to Translation, Communication and Dissemination of research findings / environmental health guidelines, and implementation of major values and principles of CBPR within the community research social dynamic. Applied use of TO techniques will focus on creation of community ethnographies keyed to over-arching concepts of environmental justice, social determinants of health / health disparities and special vulnerabilities within populations. Ethnography building culminates in a “thick description” of cumulative risk from community perspective in terms of how multiple stressors bear on the life-ways of an EJ community. We will also unpack the social dynamic among researchers, community advocates and residents using Image Theatre (a special application of TO). Workshop will offer overview of basic concepts / techniques used in applying Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) to Community Engaged Research, particularly with reference to Translation, Communication and Dissemination of research findings / environmental health guidelines, and implementation of major values and principles of CBPR within the community research social dynamic. Applied use of TO techniques will focus on creation of community ethnographies keyed to over-arching concepts of environmental justice, social determinants of health / health disparities and special vulnerabilities within populations. Ethnography building culminates in a “thick description” of cumulative risk from community perspective in terms of how multiple stressors bear on the life-ways of an EJ