This paper explores strategies to engage community stakeholders in efforts to address a wide-spread environmental justice concern: the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP). This variability poses challenges for documenting and replicating best practices. Communities are complex adaptive systems, and successful strategies to advance health, such as policy and practices to reduce inequities in pollution exposure, likely vary across and within communities. This is particularly true in the case of advancing environmental justice, which often involves policy change and modifications to the built environment, as well as shifts in both public and private sector practice. Moving from research to community action necessitates broad community engagement to shift public will. Moreover, because it emerged in the context of health equity work, CBPR is specifically intended to drive changes to promote health equity and justice. In the context of environmental health research CBPR was catalyzed in part by funding support from the National Institute of Environmental Health and Science (NIEHS). CBPR is specifically designed to generate research that can inform policy and practice and catalyze change through the active engagement of community members in local decision-making processes. ĬBPR emerged on the health research scene nearly two decades ago and is seen as an effective approach to tackling inequities in health. As an approach, community-based participatory research (CBPR) combines inquiry and collective action and has gained popularity as a strategy for elevating health-related priorities in marginalized communities. Resident action at the community level can be an effective mechanism for catalyzing change, particularly when efforts are informed by data. Unfortunately, environmental policies are often not enforced at these polluted sites and resident complaints are inadequately addressed. Pollution sources including manufacturing facilities, energy plants, highways, airports, and toxic waste sites are frequently situated in communities of color and low-income areas. In the United States (US) and abroad, communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats including noise and emissions generated by major roadways. Social workers and public health professionals can advance TRAP exposure mitigation by exploring the political and social context of communities and working to bridge research and community action. As such, we found that pairing the ISF with a community organizing framework may serve as a useful approach for examining the dynamic relationship between science, community engagement and environmental research translation. However, although municipal stakeholders are increasingly sympathetic to and aware of the health impacts of TRAP, there was not a local legislative or regulatory precedent on how to move some of the proposed TRAP-related policies into practice. The ISF was helpful in informing the team’s thinking related to systems and structures needed to translate research to practice. In contrast, Chinatown community activists focused on immediate resident concerns including housing and resident displacement resulting in more opposition to local municipal leadership. In Somerville, community organizers worked with city and state officials, and embraced community development strategies to engage residents. Resultsįindings indicate political history plays a significant role in shaping community action. Guided by the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF), we drew on three data sources: key informant interviews, observations and document reviews. Qualitative instrumental case study design was employed to examine how community-level factors in two Massachusetts communities, the City of Somerville and Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood, influence the translation of research into practice to address TRAP exposure. Communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats including emissions generated by major roadways. This paper explores strategies to engage community stakeholders in efforts to address the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP).
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