From: | Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org> |
Date: | Tue, 11 May 1999 11:20:47 -0700 (PDT) |
Reply: | cpeo-brownfields |
Subject: | Delaware, Ohio: Community Environmental Health Assessment |
The results are starting to come in from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Community Environmental Health Assessment pilot project. Ten health departments across the country are testing the "Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health" (PACE-EH). The idea of the project is to ask members of the community, not just the experts, about environmental health concerns. While it appears that the health departments that are using this tool see it primarily as a way to focus public resources better, a community-based assessment should also prove valuable as a baseline for community-driven brownfields revitalization. The following report, from Delaware County, Ohio, appeared originally in the April, 1999 edition of "Setting the PACE," published by NACCHO (http://naccho.org) and the Green Mountain Institute for Environmental Democracy (http://gmied.org), with support from the National Center for Environmental Health (http://www.cdc.gov/nceh). LS COMMUNITY OUTREACH IN DELAWARE, OHIO Jonathan Schwartz, Paul Rosile, and Hilton da Silva The Delaware County (Ohio) PACE EH pilot site has, from the outset, focused its efforts on producing a community environmental health assessment that incorporates a variety of opportunities for collecting, analyzing and acting upon widespread community input. Taking a cue from the methodology proposed in PACE EH, the Delaware assessment committee did not limit the process by coordinating issue identification around either the existence of, or feasibility of collecting, specific environmental health data. Instead, they began the issue identification process with the proverbial "blank slate." Opting to, temporarily, put aside the extensive local environmental health knowledge held individually by the assessment committee members, the PACE EH committee chose to concentrate on learning about the environmental health of the community from the community. To this end, the assessment committee employed a number of specific community outreach programs. Focus Groups Five focus groups were convened with the assistance of a professional consulting firm to ensure the quality and accuracy of the data collected. The focus groups involved a total of 65 participants randomly chosen from each of the five distinct geographic regions found in the county. The participants were convened such that each focus group accurately represented the overall demographic make-up of each region. The aim of the focus groups was to collect public input about perceived environmental and environmental health issues in Delaware County. Staff from the consulting firm facilitated the discussions. Each facilitator had the focus group discuss the following: * what is best about living in Delaware County, * what are the biggest county-wide problems, * what does the word "environment" mean, * what are the main environmental concerns in the county, * what are the main environmental health concerns in the county, * how should these concerns be prioritized, and * what should be done to resolve these concerns. The five focus group responses were then analyzed for both individual content and broad similarities and differences. The consulting firm provided the PACE EH assessment committee with a report that both detailed specific individualized responses and presented a broad overview of public perception of local environmental health. The report also relayed suggestions for prioritization of, and action upon, a number of environmental health issues identified by the general population. Facilitated Discussions At the same time, the assessment committee also conducted twenty-four facilitated discussions throughout the different townships, villages and geographic regions of the county. Hundreds of individuals, representing every local township and numerous community organizations, took part in the facilitated discussions. The aim of the facilitated discussions, like the focus group study, was to develop an understanding of the community perspective of the environmental health issues and priorities of Delaware County. The facilitated discussions were led by representatives of the PACE EH assessment committee and followed a script similar to the one employed throughout the focus group discussions. The facilitated discussions, however, served an educational function by introducing the participants to the PACE EH project, the role of the assessment committee, and the use and value of environmental health indicators in relation to the project. In this fashion, the assessment committee compiled a less statistically random, but far more extensive, collection of data representing local perspectives of environmental health than that generated by the focus group study. Furthermore, the assessment committee had also begun constructing a framework for coalition-building between themselves and the community. In effect, the community outreach achieved by the facilitated discussions was not limited to data collection but also incorporated project promotion and the germination of future coalition-building with community representatives. Key Informant Interviews In addition the assessment committee organized twenty-six key informant interviews. The informants were chosen based on a demonstrated expertise, or occupation, in environmental and/or environmental health issues. Open-ended questionnaires, asking about perceived environmental health problems in the county and recommendations for addressing them, were sent in advance to each of the key informants, follow-up phone interviews were conducted to elicit responses. The informants were also given the option to supply written comments. The key informant interviews were valuable tools for comparing the perspective of the general populous to that of local environmental and environmental health "experts." The key informant interviews validated community opinion and provided more sophisticated issue analysis that served to orient future project planning. Assessment Committee Opinion In order to both coordinate future activities and utilize the environmental health expertise demonstrated by individual members of the Delaware County PACE EH assessment committee, each member was asked to present his or her opinions regarding local environmental health to the overall committee. This procedure was designed to both develop additional data for analysis, as well as familiarize the assessment committee with the kinds of data they would soon be analyzing. However, this step also produced an unexpected benefit. It graphically demonstrated that, for the most part, the environmental health concerns and priorities expressed by the community mirrored those suggested by the assessment committee members. Thus, it served to remind the committee that they in fact are representatives of the community, and that there does exist potential for widespread community consensus in addressing local environmental health issues. Data Management Two months were spent compiling the information from the focus groups, facilitated discussions, key informant interviews, and PACE EH assessment committee statements of opinion. Through analysis of the data, 465 distinct "concerns" pertaining to the environmental health of the community were identified. The concerns ranged from global warming and unchecked population growth to local water quality and solid waste management. This list of 465 concerns was aggregated and grouped into 19 distinct environmental health categories. Thirteen of these categories were considered by the assessment committee "traditional" environmental health distinctions. The assessment committee developed six additional categories. 13 Traditional Environmental Health Categories: 1.) Water Supply, Water Quality and Water Pollution 2.) Sewage Disposal 3.) Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution 4.) Solid Waste Management 5.) Food Safety and Protection 6.) Animal Control (insect, rodent, parasite and other pests) 7.) Housing Safety and Sanitation (incl. Residential Environmental Control) 8.) Radiation Safety 9.) Noise Control 10.) Pesticide and Toxic Substances Control 11.) Occupational Environmental Control 12.) Recreational Environmental Control 13.) Injury Prevention, Control and Public Safety 6 Additional Environmental Health Categories: 1.) Recycling 2.) Environmental Education and Funding 3.) Environmental Enforcement, Regulation, Law, and Zoning 4.) Quality of Life 5.) Development 6.) Parking Lot (General Issues not directly related to Environmental Health) A series of graphs were developed to visually represent the findings of the committee. A subcommittee derived from the assessment team was tasked with developing "frequency" criteria, and a frequency analysis was conducted in order to determine which issues were mentioned most often, and in which geographic regions specific issues were deemed significant. This analysis allowed for further organization of the list and facilitated the grouping of some issues. Next the issues were reviewed by the assessment committee for similarities and redundancies. Finally, overarching issues and those unrelated to the environment were isolated and removed from the developing issue list. The grouping of issues and elimination of redundancies reduced the initial 465 environmental health concerns to 194 issues. Further refinement of specific issues, and a broadening of the categories, reduced the list to 66 issues. Next the assessment committee combined the results of a frequency analysis and a set of modified criteria originally presented in the City of Columbus Priorities '95 Project that focused on data availability, potential risk, feasibility of public comprehension, and potential for action. In this fashion the remaining 66 issues were screened and twenty local environmental concerns were identified. All the issues in the list were approved by consensus of the assessment committee, and they represented a 95% correlation with the most frequently mentioned issues gathered from the Delaware community at large. The identification of the top 20 issues concluded Phase I of the Delaware (OH) PACE EH project. The experiences of the Delaware (OH) PACE EH assessment committee indicate that the effort put toward widespread community outreach as a form of data collection was valuable in a variety of ways. It both produced a great deal of relevant environmental health data for analysis, and provided a conduit between the assessment committee and the community that set the stage for project promotion and coalition building. Community outreach, combined with research, provided the assessment committee not only with insight into the environmental health values and perceptions of the community, but also the recognition that their task was both valuable and appreciated. Community outreach efforts informed the assessment committee that not only are they representatives of the community, but members as well. -- Lenny Siegel Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041 Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545 Fax: 650/968-1126 lsiegel@cpeo.org (PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE PHASING OUT MY OLD E-MAIL ADDRESS: lsiegel@igc.org) http://www.cpeo.org | |
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