Project COAL: Dedra Hicks, Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator, shows the indoor air quality survey team how to use the Z-Phon pump to measure mold spores.

The NIEHS Center joined a regional collective network in the Houston/Galveston Citizens Air Monitoring Project. Here, Project Coordinator, Mothers for Clean Air Executive Director, Jane Laping demonstrates co-located/co-synchronous air sampling technique.

Corpus Christi/Citizens for Environmental Justice: Forum participants build an image of typical community reactions to possible congenital heart disease cluster.

West Port Arthur/Community In-power Development Association: Forum performers create an image of their greatest environmental fear: “An Explosion at the Plant!”

Division III:
Public Forum & Toxic Assistance

Division III
    Co-Directors: John Sullivan and Jonathan Ward
Public Forum
    Project COAL
    “Restricted Area” continuation project 2003-2005
    Collaboration with MfCA on EPA funded Collaborative Problem-Solving Project 2004-2007
    Tox & Risk Training for communities & environmental health professionals based on Boal image theatre, sociodrama & sociometry exercises.
    Training & Research on Environmental Health & Risk Consequences of Hurricane Damage
Toxic Assistance
    Houston Mayor’s Task Force
    Houston Endowment Study
    Texas Environmental Research Consortium (TERC)
    Environmental Protection Agency National Environmental Justice Advisory Council Working Group on Hurricane Katrina issues
Archives

Division III

   Co-Directors: John Sullivan and Jonathan Ward

Intro text

Public Forum

• On-site informational expert panels
• In-service workshops for environmental education professionals
• Environmental health-related site-specific performances
• Community Environmental Forum Theater Projects
• “Tox & Risk” / Community Involvement workshops for regulatory & environmental health professionals

    Project COAL (Communities Organized Against Asthma and Lead)

The community outreach activities of the Public Forum and Toxics Assistance Division of the COEP introduced the NIEHS Center Investigators to a variety of community groups and created an opportunity to respond to an NIEHS Partnerships for Communication request for applications. The objective of the RFA was to develop collaboration between an established community organization, a health care provider in the community, and a professional environmental health scientist in developing a community assistance program to address an environmental health need in the community. Members from the DNA Repair and Mutagenesis and Asthma Pathogenesis research cores of the NIEHS Center, together with members of the COEP collaborated to create a partnership with the community organization De Madres à Madres in the Near Northside Community of Houston TX and the Casa de Amigos primary care health clinic of the Harris County Hospital District.

The staff at De Madres à Madres identified exposure of children to lead and asthma as significant environmental health problems in the low-income Hispanic community that they serve. A project was developed to assess homes in the community for the presence of lead and asthma triggers using both survey questionnaires and objective analysis for these substances in samples collected form the homes. A unique feature of the project was the inclusion of the use of the forum theater technique as a tool for educating community residents, obtaining information about their beliefs regarding environmental health risks, and evaluating the quality of the community/university collaboration. The project was approved and funded in September 2003 with a first year budget of approximately $240,000. Initial implementation of the project is currently in progress.

The success of our proposal was greatly facilitated by three elements: 1) the community outreach activities of the COEP – particularly Community Environmental Forum Theater collaboration with Houston’s Nuestra Palabra – through which a previous relationship with De Madres à Madres had been established; 2) an ongoing research relationship among Drs. Edward Brooks, Sharon Petronella and Jonathan Ward in developing previous community-based environmental health studies; and 3) the implementation of the use of forum theater as a tool for community environmental health interventions by John Sullivan. These elements, which were all fostered by the COEP, placed us in a position to respond successfully to the RFA.

The project was unveiled at the Edward James Olmos Latino Book and Family Fair (October 11-12th, 2003), where it offered a bilingual poster to explain the project’s goals and objectives, conducted pulmonary function testing and co-sponsored a lead level screening with the City of Houston’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Division.

   “Restricted Area” continuation project 2003-2005

Funded through EPA Technical Assistance grant to Mothers for Clean Air – 3 Public Forums with MfCA 5^th Ward in Houston, 4 performances of “Restricted Area” (Julia C. Hester House / 5^th Ward, Talento Bilingue de Houston (5^th/2^nd Ward) & collaborative project in Buffalo NY at EPA Community Involvement Conference. (See Poster on slide #43 for list of collaborators). “Restricted Area” began as outcome of a 2002-2003 NIEHA Pilot Project grant.