Navigating Community-Engaged Research to Understand How Drought Affects Water Quality

Mustraut Community-engaged research (CEnR) is becoming more prevalent in environmental health. With a spectrum of community involvement characterizing this research, it has the potential to foster a diverse set of collaborative dynamics. Our research team has facilitated a regional CEnR effort focus...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of environmental health Vol. 87; no. 2; pp. 14 - 18
Main Authors Stoll, Nicholas, Macaluso, Francesca, Canaly, Christine, James, Katherine A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Denver National Environmental Health Association 01.09.2024
Subjects
Analysis
Associations, institutions, etc
Climate change
Climatic changes
Collaboration
Communication
Community
Community involvement
Contaminants
Data collection
Drought
Droughts
Environment
Environmental health
Environmental management
Environmental monitoring
Environmental research
Environmental science
Environmental sciences
Environmental stewardship
Groundwater
Groundwater quality
Heavy metals
Influence
Information processing
Natural resources
Outdoor air quality
Participation
Project management
Public health
Recruitment
Regional analysis
Social networks
Strategic planning (Business)
Teams
Type 2 diabetes
Water quality
Water resources
Water shortages
Water wells
Water, Underground
United States
United States > US
San Luis Valley
Colorado
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Summary:Mustraut Community-engaged research (CEnR) is becoming more prevalent in environmental health. With a spectrum of community involvement characterizing this research, it has the potential to foster a diverse set of collaborative dynamics. Our research team has facilitated a regional CEnR effort focusing on the effects of drought driven by climate change. Specifically, the CEnR is focusing on regional water quality by analyzing samples from privately owned groundwater wells and examining the samples for heavy metal contaminants. This special report outlines lessons learned and project management strategies used to facilitate largescale community-engaged environmental science. Recruitment methods evolved in response to obstacles and included direct mailings, listservs and social media promotion, direct recruitment by local leaders, and local newspaper coverage. Participant onboarding evolved as new recruitment methods were implemented but was standardized to achieve process efficiency. External data sources were used to align contextual information of sampled wells to the submitted samples. Open-source tools were used to streamline reporting of results to participants. Scalability, project management, bidirectional involvement with community members and organizations, and accountability are important themes to consider when facilitating environmental CEnR.
ISSN:0022-0892