Environmental Health Assessment by Local Environmental Justice Experts for Evidence-based Decision-making in an Agricultural Community of Northern California

Abstract

Environmental justice research driven by academics and policymakers often overlooks the valuable insights and leadership of the communities most impacted by environmental hazards. When institution-led research approaches are employed, inadequate community ownership and limited institutional accountability hinder the effectiveness of environmental public health interventions. In contrast, a community-owned and -managed approach to environmental justice research can guide community members in developing evidence-based interventions. This paper outlines a community-led environmental health assessment survey (sample= 100) and resulting community actions over six years (2017 to 2023) in a Northern California farmworker community with a perceived high prevalence of cancer and exposure to environmental hazards in households, neighborhoods, and job sites. Local resident experts in Knights Landing, CA, documented community risk factors and exposures in collaboration with interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate student-researchers. The survey instrument focused on environmental hazards identified by local resident experts including vehicular and agricultural pollution, occupational pesticide contact, and sun exposure. Survey findings highlighted the need for targeted interventions to reduce environmental health risks, such as academic outreach programs, county investments in public services, and community-led mutual aid initiatives. Despite academic reservations about our non-random sampling method and data collection by local resident experts, our project sparked substantial actions and investments with minimal personnel and financial resources. Local leaders working with student-researchers developed more effective environmental public health interventions through a community-owned and -managed approach that went beyond the efforts of local regulatory and research institutions.

Keywords: Environmental justice; agricultural; carcinogen; community health assessment survey; community-based participatory action research; rural.

Figure 1:. Map of Cancer Fatalities per 100,000 Residents in Yolo County.

Cancer fatality rates per 100,000 persons are separated into census tracts for A) 2011-2014 and B) 2015-2018. The highest cancer burden was in the northeastern census tract including Knights Landing. Fatality data were retrieved from California Department of Public Health Vital Records Business and Information System. This map was reproduced using ArcGIS Online with permission from Yolo County Community Health Branch (Yolo County Community Health Branch 2015, 2018).

Figure 2.. Map of Knights Landing Environmental Health Survey recruitment zones.

Promotora-researchers designated geographic zones to represent the sub-populations of Knights Landing. The downtown residential area (D) which covers the Knights Landing Census Designated Place (US Census Bureau 2017) was split along major roads to include quadrants of approximately equal numbers of residents. The periphery zones (P) include a migrant farm-worker labor camp, trailer homes, and farmhouses considered to be underrepresented subpopulations. Representative map was rendered using ArcGIS Online.