Increasing Environmental Health Literacy through Contextual Learning in Communities at Risk

Abstract

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.

Health concerns among waste collectors during pandemic crisis

“…It includes not only formal education and training offered by formal educational institutions but also informal forms consisting of any organized and sustained learning activities on the job. The findings of our study are also supported by Davis et al (2018), who highlighted that individuals' environmental health skills are significantly enhanced by education and training. Furthermore, education and training have been confirmed as a positive factor for preventing and reducing occupational injuries and illnesses among MSWCs (Bogale et al 2014;Zolnikov et al 2018;Shin et al 2019;Kaim et al 2020).…”

Balancing incomplete COVID-19 evidence and local priorities: risk communication and stakeholder engagement strategies for school re-opening

“…To tackle low levels of trust and build EHL, research translation professionals increasingly turn to participatory approaches that encourage co-learning while empowering at-risk communities [50][51][52][53]. These engaged approaches are consistent with the precautionary principle, foregrounding community values and incorporating stakeholder perspectives into prevention strategies and risk messages that are both evidence-based and feasible [54,55].…”

Knowledge and Beliefs Associated with Environmental Health Literacy: A Case Study Focused on Toxic Metals Contamination of Well Water

“…In recent years, a more robust set of instruments designed to assess EHL has been developed. Davis et al [11] assessed the impact of a participatory training focused on rainwater harvesting and water contamination, finding that participants demonstrated increased knowledge and self-efficacy post-training. They also demonstrated increases in specific environmental health skills.…”