This article is a follow up piece from last year’s spring newsletter:

“Hurricane Readiness: a Way of Life on the Bayous – an NIEHS community-based pilot project in south Terrebonne-Lafourche Parishes, Louisiana”

After Hurricane Rita devastated the western Louisiana and east Texas Gulf coasts, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Community Outreach & Education Core (COEC) at the University of Texas Medical Branch responded by delivering medical supplies to Larose La., and deploying an outreach survey team that videotaped a series of interviews with environmental activists involved in rescue and recovery efforts.  Between Oct. 4 and Dec. 17, 2006, this team asked respondents to identify and prioritize perceived environmental health risks due to storm damage, and to suggest outreach strategies that would assist recovery and increase community readiness for future storms.  In April 2006, the COEC’s Public Forum & Toxics Assistance Division received funding for an NIEHS pilot project to create and implement a site-specific community environmental risk curriculum that incorporates major areas of concern identified in the survey with a primary focus on the health consequences of large storms.

The targeted area for this intervention was south Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes.  This part of Louisiana is home to the United Houma Nation, traditional Louisiana Cajun culture, and numerous small scale commercial shrimp operations.   This is also one of the few regions in the Lower 48 where subsistence fishing, trapping and hunting are still a significant factor in the local economy.  COEC outreach chose this region because Hurricane Rita caused significant environmental damage in the area, most respondents in the original survey lived there, and a number of local organizations expressed enthusiasm for the project.  Les Reflections du Bayou – a grassroots gulf restoration group - emerged as the local organizational anchor.  Since the project employs a community based research and intervention model, several planning sessions with a network of local organizations were convened; this interactive process yielded additional ideas stemming from years of local experience with storms, recovery and coastal loss.  Ultimately, the final outline of themes and topics reflect community priorities as well as the environmental health focus of the NIEHS.  The network co-created a 15 hour intensive training program - “Hurricane Readiness: a Way of Life on the Bayous” –  covering: 1) wetlands loss / coastal subsidence, 2) evacuation safety, 3) toxic exposures and medical outcomes of storm disasters, 4) storm-related mental health issues, 5) risk communication, and 6) community hazard assessments. 

Les Reflection du Bayou coordinated the training between Sept. 8 and September 12, 2006.  The process consisted of an intensive weekend workshop geared toward representatives of local groups who would then volunteer to serve their organizations as skill and information conduits.  After completing the workshop, participants gave two public Forums: one in Terrebonne Parish (at Houma), and the other in Lafourche Parish (at Galliano).  Additional guest presenters included a mix of local and academic research expertise, including:  coastal / wetlands deterioration (Windell Curole / South Lafourche Levee District), clinical medicine (Michael Robichaux, MD / Mathews, Louisiana), disaster epidemiology (Sharon Petronella, PhD/ UTMB), and community hazard assessment (Wilma Subra, MS / analytic chemist).  The workshop participants will meet for a second phase of training in March 2007.  Additional content will include: characteristics of vulnerable populations, advanced community storm hazard identification and risk assessment, effective advocacy for coastal restoration, and achieving sustainable outcomes: maintaining the Terrebonne-Lafourche network and funding future programs.  Louisiana communities actively represented in this project include: Larose, Lockport, Galliano, Golden Meadow, Cut Off, Point-aux-Chenes, Montegut, Dulac, Chauvin, Houma, Mathews, New Iberia, Isle de Jean Charles and Grand Bois.

Submitted by:  John Sullivan, co-director: Public Forum & Toxics Assistance Sealy Center for Environmental Health & Medicine / NIEHS Center in Environmental Toxicology

Publication Submissions

We encourage other APHA Environment Section members to share information about new reports and books, available free on the Internet from their organizations, which have the potential to be of broad interest to section members due to their multidisciplinary nature and/or focus on prevention (of exposures, disparities, morbidity, mortality, disability) or policy.  However, due to space limitations, please note we publicize neither reports which are also available as archived peer-reviewed journal articles nor government reports and Web sites.  Please send your ideas with descriptive text (250-300 words or less) by the appropriate deadlines for upcoming issues of the APHA Environment Section e-newsletter to andrea.wismann@uchsc.edu.