Integrating Information Resources to Promote Environmental Health Literacy in Appalachian Kentucky

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Health disparities in Appalachian Kentucky have been well-documented, with many chronic health conditions disproportionately experienced across the region linked to environmental contributors. Deteriorating infrastructure, inappropriate waste disposal, and risks related to mining, agriculture, and other occupational activities underscore the need for this at-risk population to receive clear, timely, and accessible information about potential environmental health threats to support important decisions about preventive and protective actions. Unfortunately, creating easily understandable resources and tools can prove especially challenging in a region where educational attainment falls well below national averages, with nearly one-quarter of adults over age 25 lacking high school diplomas and only about one-fifth holding an associate's degree or higher. Therefore, improving environmental health literacy (EHL) in the region is critical. EHL uses information and methods from health, social, and environmental sciences to promote understanding of the relationship between environmental exposures and human health. Such understanding can spur individual and/or community actions to minimize unnecessary exposures and mitigate illness related to unavoidable exposures. To this end, it is critical that existing information resources be evaluated, integrated, improved, and made more accessible to help improve EHL and inform environmental health decisions. To address these needs, our multidisciplinary team will deploy stakeholder-engaged research strategies to achieve the following Specific Aims: 1) evaluate existing environmental health-related risk maps currently available from academic, government, and non-profit organizations to determine resource accessibility, navigability, understandability, and perceived utility for Appalachian Kentuckians; 2) conduct needs assessments to identify additional information and appropriate framing required to improve understandability and utility of environmental health-related risk maps for Appalachian Kentuckians; 3) use information gathered in Aims 1 and 2 to enhance maps through the inclusion of critical health-related information in accessible formats, as well as through potential changes to the visualizations themselves to improve understandability; and 4) leverage stakeholder- partnerships developed through the study to disseminate revised maps and additional environmental health resources through community organizations, thereby promoting EHL across the region.