Data about pollution and climate change is more abundant than ever, but so are the challenges in finding community-centered data, understanding the usefulness and limitations of data, and how to translate the data into local level action. Power Over Pollution is E2I2’s novel environmental health data literacy training program that helps Environmental Justice communities access, understand, and use data to amplify their voices and develop action plans for change.
Power Over Pollution’s overall objective is to improve knowledge about environmental and health data and the self-efficacy and skills to translate data into evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellbeing. We rigorously designed Power Over Pollution based on tested health behavior change theories and state-of-the-art environmental health literacy frameworks.
The added value of Power Over Pollution is our team’s ability to tailor each training to the context and training needs of different communities, which range from poor water or air quality to lead contamination to extreme heat and more.
Power Over Pollution uses community-centered, participatory, hands-on multi-media activities to build knowledge and skills within a safe learning environment. Fundamental to the learning approach is fostering community among participants and amplifying their connections to the broader community they represent.
Each training follows a similar structure. Learning module 1 begins with understanding the connection between environmental exposures and health. Module 2 moves onto how environmental data is collected and measured. Next, in module 3, participants learn how to interpret data that is presented in different formats like graphs, charts and even GIS maps. The training concludes in module 4 with learning about ways to protect health from environmental exposures and brainstorming local level action. Every training ends with an action plan developed by all the participants collaboratively to ensure momentum continues after the training concludes.
Each session has mindfulness breaks, opportunities for working with different people in different capacities to address the social-emotional needs of adult learners. Modules end with a shared reflection experience, a celebration of our hard work, and a review of questions as a checklist to ensure that we are addressing their questions and additional learning needs.