Confab Exploring the Intersection of Wildfire Smoke Public Health Communication and EJ
Citation:
Hano, M., M. Kirshner, AND K. Bannantine. Confab Exploring the Intersection of Wildfire Smoke Public Health Communication and EJ. Wildfire Smoke and Public Health Communications Confab, Durham, NC, March 02, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
This is not a formal research study, but is part of the groundwork we are doing to help scope what we may do in the future and how future research may plug into broader efforts - and has been developed in consultation with CPHEA communications and R10 colleagues. Although state agency partners who work in the area of AQ and wildland fire are some of the primary communicators about this issue, we know there is a range of expertise and experience among these partners with respect to communication and EJ, broadly. There are a lot of assumptions (that we and others are making) about the intersection of wildland fire smoke and effectively mitigating associated adverse health outcomes in communities with EJ concerns. We need to connect with a small number of state agency partners to understand their perspectives. We can more clearly identify how ORD research can support collective efforts for improving these issues. In collaboration with R10, want reached out to air quality experts at state agencies in R10 (both public health and environmental partners). In each of the four states in R10 we’ve identified 1-3 people who may inform what risk communication about smoke looks like in their role. That identification process was based on a systematic assessment of state level characteristics, e.g., wildfire smoke risk, EJSCREEN indicators, organizational capacity, etc. We consulted with Rob Elleman the R10 RSL and he connected us with Erin McTigue and Randall Ruddick – both AQ experts in R10. All were supportive of this small effort and will remain engaged. We will have a series of discussions with fewer than a total of 9 people – both Teams and by email – and through that we will try to ground truth our assumptions and where we are off-base, will leverage that communication to help us better understand what EJ looks like in their work. Finally, we’d like to discuss some potential ways that we can support their work through applied research. This presentation shares an overview of the discussion process. We will synthesize their feedback and host another meeting in April to member-check that what we heard is accurate and discuss ideas for future research that may advance our shared goals.
Description:
This presentation shares the overview of the informal conversation we are hosting to learn more from partners about the intersection of risk communication about wildfire smoke and environmental justice.