Expanding Environmental Health Literacy—A Focus on Water Quality and Tribal Lands.

Abstract

Environmental health literacy (EHL), an evolving concept, has potential for significant public health impact. However, complex skills are needed to access and use information, to study and document hazards, to link findings to health outcomes, and to understand the complexities of regulations and laws needed to take efficacious action. Because water issues are creating headlines world-wide, we draw from several water-related cases on American Indian tribal lands to examine some of the complexities associated with building needed skills, obtaining accessible information, and navigating the layers of laws and regulations that enable or inhibit efficacious action. Each case highlights the importance of partnerships, skill building, and collaborative action to redress environmental assaults. For our analysis, we draw from and expand upon Nutbeam’s typology of health literacy which includes functional, interactive, and critical stages to derive lessons from each of the EHL cases. Community partnerships engaging in EHL efforts still face many challenges, including enhancing skills for community members as well as professionals, clarifying scientific processes and findings, articulating and respecting cultural practices and needs, and translating policies and laws for community accessibility and collaborative action.

Acknowledgments

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We appreciate the Montana Water Center for their support of Miranda Margetts. We also thank Sarah Pytalski, who assisted with the identification of case studies while serving as Policy Research & Evaluation Manager for the National Congress of American Indians.

Additional information

Funding

This project was made possible by the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity Montana (CAIRHE), grant P20GM104417 [PI: Alex Adams] and the MT INBRE II grant P20GM103474 [PI: B. Bothner] both sponsored by the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences