Community Engagement and Dissemination Core

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SUMMARY-COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT and DISSEMENATION CORE The UNM Center for Native American Environmental Health Equity Research addresses emerging tribal environmental health disparities associated with trash burning and dumping, resulting from insufficient infrastructure disparities to manage solid waste on tribal lands. The Community Engagement and Dissemination Core (CEDC) leverages established relationships among academic and tribal partners (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Crow and Navajo Nations) in support of tribal environmental health equity. The CEDC expands sustainable, culturally-informed practices to enhance EH literacy, increase tribal EH research capacity, foster community engagement in EH research, and implement multi-directional translational strategies for disseminating the Center’s research. To enhance EH literacy, foster engagement in research projects and build tribal EH research capacity, the CEDC will conduct regular location-specific EH symposia and an ongoing webinar series covering such topics as incorporating traditional ecologic knowledge (TEK) into the research process; environmental, biological and social determinants of health; collection and quality control of environmental and survey data. The CEDC will seek collaboration from the community to 1) refine strategies to support environmental sampling (e.g. identifying locations and frequency of trash burning activities for monitoring micro-plastics and chemical exposures in environmental media), and participant recruitment for surveys, 2) identify and support research liaisons, and 3) identify and support promising pilot project topics and community collaborators. In response to community concerns, and lack of data, a survey of social stressors and resilience factors is included as a CEDC activity in all tribal communities. Also in response to community needs, implementation of a targeted environmental health and toxicology literacy education program will be continued in the CEDC. Community research liaisons, hired exclusively from tribal communities, will understand of environmental exposure sources and pathways based on local TEK, and transgenerational perspectives on health and resiliency. The liaisons will assist with collection of environmental samples including placement and collection of stationary wristbands and plant samples as citizen scientists. They will conduct outreach, collect survey data and support research dissemination. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)/Indigenous Way of Knowing (IWK) influence decisions regarding participation in research, especially projects that involve the collection of information that has implications for others in the community. To facilitate the linkage with TEK/IWK, our artist-in-residence will continue to develop art pieces (e.g. paintings) to translate the Center’s complex scientific research objectives and findings to tribal communities using traditional messaging relayed through native symbolism, storytelling, and other transgenerational imagery.