Journal Article

Developing a Curriculum for Change: Water and Environmental Health Literacy in a Native American Community

Simonds, Vanessa W, Cummins, Jason, LaVeaux, Deborah, Picket, Velma, Calkins, Erin

2018

Overview

Knowing about risks of water contamination is the first step in making informed choices to protect our health and environment. Researchers were challenged with sharing water quality research this information with local communities. The purpose of this article is to describe the formative evaluation used to develop and implement an Environmental Health Literacy (EHL) summer camp and afterschool water curriculum for Native American (NA) children in the fourth through sixth grades. Community and university scientists, elders, and educators came together and co-developed a summer camp and afterschool program for local youth to address the issues of water and its importance to the tribal community. Research partners must continually balance research needs with relationships and service to the community. The health literacy framework used to develop our curriculum also complemented our community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and may benefit other partnerships. CBPR helped to build trust and culturally center the intervention. Project partners built on the mutual commitment to \"do what we say we will do\" within the community context. Using the CBPR approach provided a strong framework for the collaboration necessary for this project. Trust relationships were key to the successes experienced during the development, implementation, and multiple revisions of this intervention.

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Subject: American Indians / Camps / Child / Collaboration / Committees / Community / Community based action research / Community involvement / Community research / Community-Based Participatory Research / Community-Institutional Relations / Contaminated water / Culture / Curricula / Curriculum / Curriculum development / Elementary school students / Environment / Environmental health / Formative evaluation / Health behavior / Health education / Health literacy / Health Literacy - methods / Health services / Humans / Indians, North American - education / Intervention / Knowledge / Literacy / Literacy programs / Local communities / Medical research / Montana / Natural environment / Older people / Participatory research / Partnerships / Planning / Program Evaluation / Researchers / Students / Summer / Teachers / Universities / Water pollution / Water quality / Water Supply