Engaging in Health Activism through Neighbor-to-Neighbor Communication

ABSTRACT

Given the importance of local organizing to environmental health advocacy and activism, we need more understanding of how neighbors communicate about health risks. Individual residents in a neighborhood can be agents of social change, communicating about common health concerns and ways to cope with them, potentially leading to health activism. In this study, we used a grounded theory approach to analyze Pennsylvania residents’ (N = 407) responses to open-ended questions that asked their thoughts on engaging in conversations with neighbors about the risk of lead exposure. Our findings describe (a) what respondents would want to share with neighbors about health risks and how they would communicate with their neighbors, (b) what actions they would like to promote to neighbors, and (c) what additional factors would facilitate conversations with neighbors. Based on the critical examination of the findings, we discuss communication strategies that can motivate health activism to bring about social structural changes.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank Rachel A. Smith for her feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. The importance of close relationships in promoting conversations with neighbors was supported by the quantitative data as well. Based on open-ended responses, intention to engage in conversations with neighbors was coded as 1 when any motivation or intention to do so was reported and as 0 when not. Social trust was assessed with three items: “People around my neighborhood are willing to help each other,” “I live in a close-knit neighborhood,” “People in my neighborhood generally get along with each other,” and “People in my neighborhood are generally trustworthy” The results from a regression analysis showed that social trust accounts for a significant portion of the variance in intention to engage in conversation with neighbors, F (1, 405) = 13.12, Adjusted R² = .03, p < .001. There was a positive relationship between social trust and intention to engage in conversations with neighbors (β = .18, p < .001).

2. Of 407 participants, 307 reported that they use community-oriented social media to some extent (110 reported rarely, 105 reported sometimes, 61 reported frequently, and 31 reported always) whereas 100 responded they never use community-oriented social media. What we found about how community-oriented social media could be utilized as a platform to engage in conversations about common health concerns and participate in neighborhood problem solving processes are based on the response of those who were using community-oriented social media (n = 307).