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WE ACT, in collaboration with Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Columbia University's School of Public Health's NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Harlem in Northern Manhattan, held three environmental health forums in 1997. Funding for the forums was provided by NIEHS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).
Although some of the environmental concerns expressed by residents at the forum were related to environmental health issues that are considered by researchers to be public health priorities (notably, traffic, housing and water and air quality problems), residents also expressed concerns about a wide variety of environmental features that are not easily captured by structured interviews (e.g., impairment of the ability to walk down the sidewalks, noise late into the evenings, stray dogs roaming the neighborhoods, etc.) There needs to be recognition of and attention paid to these concerns as well so that there can be an informative and respectful two-way exchange of information between community residents and environmental health researchers. There is also a need for stimulating and accessible formats in which to exchange this information.
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