Journal Article

Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships for Community-Engaged Environmental Health Research in Appalachian Virginia

Prussin, Aaron J., Satterwhite, Emily, Pan, Jin, Thompson, Christopher K., Buttling, Lauren, Bell, Shannon Elizabeth, Marr, Linsey C., Gohlke, Julia M.

2020

Overview

This article describes a collaboration among a group of university faculty, undergraduate students, local governments, local residents, and U.S. Army staff to address long-standing concerns about the environmental health effects of an Army ammunition plant. The authors describe community-responsive scientific pilot studies that examined potential environmental contamination and a related undergraduate research course that documented residents’ concerns, contextualized those concerns, and developed recommendations. We make a case for the value of resource-intensive university–community partnerships that promote the production of knowledge through collaborations across disciplinary paradigms (natural/physical sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and humanities) in response to questions raised by local residents. Our experience also suggests that enacting this type of research through a university class may help promote researchers’ adoption of “epistemological pluralism”, and thereby facilitate the movement of a study from being “multidisciplinary” to “transdisciplinary”.

• Publisher: MDPI AG,MDPI
• Subject: Advocacy / Ammunition / Collaboration / Community / Emissions / Environmental health / Environmental management / Epistemology / Interdisciplinary aspects / Researchers / Rural areas / Studies / Teaching / Transparency / Unmanned aerial vehicles