Implementation of a community grant program to address community-driven environmental health concerns

ABSTRACT

Community-engaged approaches to research can increase trust, enhance the relevance and use of research, address issues of equity and justice, and increase community knowledge and capacity. The HERCULES Exposome Research Center sought to engage local Atlanta communities to learn about and address their self-identified environmental health concerns. To do this, HERCULES and their stakeholder partners collaboratively developed a community grant programme. The programme was evaluated using mixed qualitative methods that included document review and semi-structured interviews. This paper presents the development, implementation, and evaluation of the grant programme. HERCULES awarded one-year grants of $2,500 to 12 organisations within the Atlanta region, for a total 13 grants and $32,500 in funding. Grantees reported accomplishments related to community knowledge, awareness, and engagement in addition to material accomplishments. All grantees planned to sustain their programmes, and some received additional funding to do so. Some grantees remained actively involved with HERCULES beyond the grant programme. The HERCULES Community Grant Program was able to increase awareness of HERCULES among applicant communities, establish or enhance relationships with community-based organisations, and identify local environmental health concerns while providing tangible results for grantees and the communities they serve. Mini-grant programmes are a feasible approach to address community environmental health and establish new relationships. This model may benefit others who aim to establish community-academic relationships while addressing community health concerns.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental health
• mini-grant
• community engagement
• community-academic partnerships
• community health

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the HERCULES Stakeholder Advisory Board for their role in designing and implementing the Shaheed DuBois Community Grant Program. We would especially like to thank and honour Clarence “Shaheed” DuBois for his integral contributions, who passed after the first year of the programme. This work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30ES019776. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30ES019776.