Citizen Science and Partnering for Action: Environmental Health Research in Underserved Communities.

Environmental health is a persistent concern for many neighborhoods, particularly those in underserved areas. Across America, one’s zip code can be more important than their genetic code. In this session, participatory approaches will be presented alongside learning and action-based evaluation outcomes. Selected community science and data sharing projects will be presented that highlight partnership building, community based participatory approaches to research, how to address complex problems that arise in communities neighboring contamination, and data sharing approaches to impact regulation and public health prevention/intervention strategies. A mixed method approach was implemented to evaluate motivation, knowledge, and environmental self-efficacy and action as they relate to hazardous site-related exposures, environmental health risks, and intervention and prevention practices. In this work, it has been observed that when applying a participatory approach, contextual model of learning, and a community-first method of reporting results, participants experience an increase in knowledge and environmental self-efficacy and are intrinsically motivated to partner and inform research and communication strategies.