GRACE: Public Health Recovery Methods Following an Environmental Disaster

Abstract

Different approaches are necessary when Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) of environmental illness is initiated after an environmental disaster within a community. Often such events are viewed as golden scientific opportunities to do epidemiological studies. However, we believe that in such circumstances, community engagement and empowerment needs to be integrated into the public health service efforts in order for both those and any science to be successful, with special care being taken to address the immediate health needs of the community first rather than the pressing needs to answer important scientific questions. We will demonstrate how we have simultaneously provided valuable public health service, embedded generalizable scientific knowledge, and built a successful foundation for supplemental CBPR through our on-going recovery work after the chlorine gas disaster in Graniteville, South Carolina.

Posttraumatic stress and tendency to panic in the aftermath of the chlorine gas disaster in Graniteville, South Carolina

“…Because the registry was created by successfully integrating community engagement and the public health service efforts, those in the registry were not only demographically representative of the Graniteville community but also randomly geographically distributed within the community [19]. …”

“…At 2:48 on the morning of 6 January 2005, a freight train traveling 77 km/h was inadvertently switched onto an industrial spur and immediately collided with a parked train outside of a textile mill in Graniteville, an unincorporated cotton mill-town in South Carolina [19]. Three chlorine tank train cars immediately derailed, one of which was punctured and leaked over 54,000 kg of liquid chlorine.…”

Summary on the Charleston Area Pollution Prevention Partnership Environmental Justice Conference and Summit

“…These two studies use of CBPR, stakeholder engagement including engagement of economic development groups and the medical community, and mixed methods including Photovoice, interviews, lung epidemiology, and secondary data analysis have been instrumental in understanding environmental health problems in Graniteville and contribute to long-term recovery efforts post-disaster. [24][25][26] And in Orangeburg, SC, the local Community Health Center in conjunction with the University of South Carolina and local farmers started a farmer's market and produced a documentary film to chronicle the development process and the impact on residents. [26][27][28] The project's success led to a state legislature decision to match voucher subsidies to shoppers.…”

A Validation Study of 5 Triage Systems Using Data From the 2005 Graniteville, South Carolina, Chlorine Spill

“…The Division of Acute Disease Epidemiology and the regional and county offices of the SC DHEC and the CDC collaborated to design and conduct public health interventions 22,23 and surveillance 20 to better characterize clinically the chlorine exposed victims. Abstracted ED and medical records data collect by these two agencies were linked with the other public health datasets of the chlorine disaster victims within the South Carolina Office of Research and Statistics (SC ORS).…”

“…16,20,23,25 After these linked data were de-identified and data use agreements were approved by all parties, the data were provided to the research team by the SC ORS for use in this study. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the University of South Carolina and the SC DHEC prior to initiation.…”