Advancing environmental health literacy through community-engaged research and popular education

Abstract

This chapter describes the process of increasing and sustaining environmental health literacy (EHL) within communities impacted by environmental hazards and associated health conditions through the comprehensive engagement of community members in environmental health research and education projects. The chapter discusses the use of popular education approaches to facilitate more effective collaboration and optimize mutual co-learning among community members and their project partners. It also explores how, by using this approach, community members can contribute their own knowledge and awareness of environmental and health conditions to advance the research and education process, thereby increasing the EHL of their academically-credentialed partners. Examples from several community-engaged research and education projects are shared to illustrate the versatility of these approaches as a means of raising EHL in a variety of contexts, including researcher-initiated scientific studies, community-initiated trainings, and co-initiated research projects. The case studies demonstrate how popular education and community-engaged research approaches can contribute to building and sustaining more equitable partnerships between impacted communities and their partners (who may be based in varied institutional settings such as academia, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations), with an emphasis on mutual co-learning and knowledge co-creation among community and academically-credentialed partners as key drivers of increased EHL.