Two communities, one highway and the fight for clean air: the role of political history in shaping community engagement
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Two communities, one highway and the fight for clean air: the role of political history in shaping community engagement and environmental health research translation Linda Sprague Martinez1* , Noelle Dimitri2 , Sharon Ron3, Neelakshi Hudda4 , Wig Zamore5, Lydia Lowe6, Ben Echevarria7, John L. Durant4 , Doug Brugge8 and Ellin Reisner5
Abstract Background: This paper explores strategies to engage community stakeholders in efforts to address the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP). Communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats including emissions generated by major roadways. Methods: Qualitative instrumental case study design was employed to examine how community-level factors in two Massachusetts communities, the City of Somerville and Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood, influence the translation of research into practice to address TRAP exposure. Guided by the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF), we drew on three data sources: key informant interviews, observations and document reviews. Thematic analysis was used. Results: Findings indicate political history plays a significant role in shaping community action. In Somerville, community organizers worked with city and state officials, and embraced community development strategies to engage residents. In contrast, Chinatown community activists focused on immediate resident concerns including housing and resident displacement resulting in more opposition to local municipal leadership. Conclusions: The ISF was helpful in informing the team’s thinking related to systems and structures needed to translate research to practice. However, although municipal stakeholders are increasingly sympathetic to and aware of the health impacts of TRAP, there was not a local legislative or regulatory precedent on how to move some of the proposed TRAP-related policies into practice. As such, we found that pairing the ISF with a community organizing framework may serve as a useful approach for examining the dynamic relationship between science, community engagement and environmental research translation. Social workers and public health professionals can advance TRAP exposure mitigation by exploring the political and social context of communities and working to bridge research and community action. Keywords: Traffic related air pollution (TRAP); research and action, Community based participatory research, Public health action * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Macro Department, Boston University School of Social Work, Boston, MA 02215, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The im
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