B.

3.)

A Dialogue, a Film and a Forum: Community Outreach in Southern Louisiana after the 2005 Gulf Storm Season

We began our outreach project in Louisiana with a clear objective framed by the NIEHS Center Community Outreach & Education Core (COEC) at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas (UTMB).  We were asked to meet with community based environmental leaders to determine how our Center could best collaborate with local groups in research and capacity-building efforts.  In early October, we traveled east from Galveston and briefly rendezvoused with another outreach crew from UTMB and UT/MD Anderson Cancer Center –- trucking water, diapers and assorted medical supplies –- at the home of Rochelle Ste. Marie in La Rose, Louisiana, our community liaison throughout much of this project.  The next day we embarked on a scoping journey that ranged through greater Baton Rouge, Tangipahoa, Orleans, St. Bernard, Jefferson, Lafourche, and Terrebonne Parishes, and the city of New Iberia.  We returned twice, attending the Louisiana Environmental Action Network conference in November, and again in December, to gauge the progress of recovery efforts in Chalmette, a petrochemical industry fence-line community in St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans and the site of the Murphy Oil spill.   Equipped with a basic video camera –- and few other technical embellishments -- we posed the following core questions to each of our community respondents:

•     What significant damage did your region sustain during or because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita?

•     What is the most significant threat to human health in your area, post-Katrina (or Rita)?

•     How has the hurricane evacuation, reentry and recovery process disrupted the social fabric of your area, and Louisiana generally?

•     What environmental health projects –- involving collaborations among environmental scientists, health care/social service providers and communities -- do you think are most important to safeguard the health of people and the ecosystem in your region and the state?

•     Describe your organization's response to this disaster.  How have you modified your mission to make an effective response?  How have these modifications affected your organization's capacity to realize your original mission?  (This strand of questioning was applicable only in interviews with members of environmental orgs.)

We distilled the results of our interviews into a series of ideas: a community "wish list" of potential collaborative research projects uniting local environmental groups, NIEHS Center investigators, health care providers and public policy makers.   These results were presented by Pam Diamond, Director of the UTMB/NIEHS Community Outreach & Education Core, at the NIEHS Center Directors Conference at Vanderbilt University, Oct. 31 - Nov. 1, 2005.  We also hoped this inversion of the traditional risk communication paradigm -– shifting the balance of power from expert to local knowledge -– would shed new light on regional risk perception and the effects of risk communication efforts by various states, regional and federal agencies, and provide new perspectives on site-specific exposure pathways. 

We also montaged our still photographs, interview and location footage and separate sound tracks into a documentary film entitled, "…after the wind, child, after the water's gone…"  This film was presented in UTMB's Preventive Medicine & Community Health seminar series, and was an official selection for the 2006 New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival (www.nolahumanrights.org).  Additional screenings are planned at the Center for the study of Society and the Environment/Rice University and through local Sierra Club chapters.  Our process is described in an article entitled, "States of Shock & Unknowing: on Documenting the Wake of Katrina & Rita in Southern Louisiana," accessible at: http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/04/states_of_shock.php. 

In April, the Public Forum & Toxics Assistance Division of the NIEHS COEC was awarded Pilot Project funding to implement a site-specific "tox & risk" community outreach program in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.   Project CEHRO (Community Environmental Health & Risk Outreach) will condense elements of the ATSDR Community Toxicology and Health Risk Communication Primer, the EPA Cumulative Risk and Community Vulnerability framework, EPA/LDEQ area toxicity data, and local knowledge of exposure pathways and risk perceptions into a translational workshop for community "tox & risk" educators, and two general Community Forums on the following topics identified as significant during the interview process: 1) health hazards and precautions associated with mold, 2) water, sludge and (possibly) dust borne pathogens, such as various vibrio species, staphylococcus, etc., 3) household and industrial spills, leaks and seepages, 4) coastal issues like saltwater infiltration of estuaries, marshland deterioration, adequacy of levees, 5) mental health effects, and 6) evacuation routes and safety.   The project is slated for September 2006, probably in Houma, La. We hope to offer similar programs in east Texas communities affected by Hurricane Rita.

John Sullivan, co-director: Public Forum & Toxics Assistance            

Sealy Center for Environmental Health & Medicine       

NIEHS Center for Environmental Toxicology                 

Galveston, Texas

Bryan Parras

TEJAS & Nuestra Palabra

Videographer Photographer

Houston, Texas