ENVIRONMENTAL-HEALTH SCIENCES EDUCATION - A TOOL FOR ACHIEVING ENVIRONMENTAL EQUITY AND PROTECTING CHILDREN

Children are highly susceptible to deleterious effects of environmenta l toxins. Those who live in underserved communities may be particularl y at risk because environmental pollution has been found to be disprop ortionately distributed among communities. Mounting evidence suggests that asthma rates are rising and that this disease can be caused or ag gravated by air pollution. Although ambient air quality has generally improved, these improvements have not reached minority communities in equal proportions. This and other data has fueled the concept of envir onmental justice or environmental equity, which has led to community a ctivism and government actions. One possible example of environmental inequity and its consequences is the Hunt's Point community, in the So uth Bronx, New York. This community experiences a high pollution burde n with the siting of facilities that emit hazardous wastes into the ai r. Our approach to this problem has been the formation of mechanisms f or bidirectional communication between community residents, government entities, and academic institutions such as Mount Sinai Medical Cente r. As a result of this experience, we believe that the key to achievin g environmental health, especially in communities of color where many children are at risk, is to empower residents to take charge of their environment by providing relevant educational opportunities. Strategie s for environmental health education include multitiered training appr oaches that include community residents, parent education, direct chil dren education, and community education through professional counselor s and train-the-trainer approaches. We propose that academic researche rs must use community residents not just as subjects of our studies, b ut to increase our mutual understanding of environmental health, resul ting in active participation of community members in research design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results in order to ma ke intervention strategies more effective.