Defining drinking water metal contaminant mixture risk by coupling zebrafish behavioral analysis with citizen science.

Contaminated drinking water is an important public health consideration in New England where well water is often found to contain arsenic and other metals such as cadmium, lead, and uranium. Chronic or high level exposure to these metals have been associated with multiple acute and chronic diseases, including cancers and impaired neurological development. While individual metal levels are often regulated, adverse health effects of metal mixtures, especially at concentrations considered safe for human consumption remain unclear. Here, we utilized a multivariate analysis that examined behavioral outcomes in the zebrafish model as a function of multiple metal chemical constituents of 92 drinking well water samples, collected in Maine and New Hampshire. To collect these samples, a citizen science approach was used, that engaged local teachers, students, and scientific partners. Our analysis of 4016 metal-mixture combinations shows that changes in zebrafish behavior are highly mixture dependent, and indicate that certain combinations of metals, especially those containing arsenic, cadmium, lead, and uranium, even at levels considered safe in drinking water, are significant drivers of behavioral toxicity. Our data emphasize the need to consider low-level chemical mixture effects and provide a framework for a more in-depth analysis of drinking water samples. We also provide evidence for the efficacy of utilizing citizen science in research, as the broader impact of this work is to empower local communities to advocate for improving their own water quality.

Public psychology: Introduction to the special issue.

Psychology's role in public life and social issues has been of longstanding concern throughout the discipline. In a historical moment of tremendous social, political, and economic strife and a global pandemic, this special issue of American Psychologist seeks to extend important discourse about the concept of public psychology. The articles included in the special issue address a range of interconnected themes, including: (a) centering social problems, (b) engaging diverse publics in knowledge creation, (c) communicating and democratizing psychological knowledge, and (d) rethinking what constitutes psychology. In this introduction, the guest editors contextualize the special issue, identify its aims, and highlight the key contributions of the included articles. The guest editors argue that realizing an expansive and transformative public psychology will require structural, substantive changes within the discipline to place community concerns at the center of psychology. Nonetheless, bolstered by the insights of the special issue's contributors, the guest editors conclude with cautious optimism that psychology has much to offer in addressing the most pressing social problems of the 21st century. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Localism "Reimagined": Building a Robust Localist Paradigm for Overcoming Emerging Conservation Challenges.

Governance gaps at both the federal and state level increasingly necessitate local action and remain a key driver of community-based solutions. A localist paradigm-encompassing models such as community-based management, citizen science, and cooperative research-offers a promising approach for bridging governance gaps by engaging citizens, co-producing knowledge, fostering trust, and developing innovative solutions to address complex conservation challenges. Yet, despite notable successes, significant barriers constrain widespread implementation of localist approaches. This is particularly evident in natural resource-dependent communities. Rural communities are increasingly faced with a range of conservation challenges related to rapid climate and land-use changes but often they lack the capacity to support locally based initiatives to better anticipate, plan for, and mitigate these changes. We examined four diverse conservation cases based on localist approaches in Maine, USA, to bring to the fore key factors that influence outcomes in different social-ecological contexts. We compared cases along three frequently discussed dimensions-governance systems, social adaptive capacities, and technology and data characteristics and found that localist outcomes vary widely depending on key metrics within each of these dimensions. There is no single way to advance localism, but we offer multiple ways to incorporate a community-based perspective into management. This synthesis of data from our collective participatory research projects provides guidance to maximize the potential of localist conservation approaches in complex social and biophysical arenas.

Food insecurity among Cambodian refugee women two decades post resettlement.

Resettled refugees have high rates of chronic disease, which may be partially due to persistent food insecurity. This study describes food experiences on arrival in the U.S. and current food security status and examines characteristics related to food insecurity in a well-established refugee community. Focus groups and a survey assessed food security status and personal characteristics of Cambodian women in Lowell, MA, USA. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine relationships with food insecurity. Current rates of food insecurity are high. In multivariate models, food insecurity was positively associated with being depressed and being widowed, and negatively associated with higher income and acculturation. Early arrivers (1980s) had difficulty in the U.S. food system on arrival, while later arrivers (1990s-2000s) did not. Refugee agencies should consider strategically devoting resources to ensure successful early transition to the U.S. food environment and long-term food security of refugees.

Acculturation, education, nutrition education, and household composition are related to dietary practices among Cambodian refugee women in Lowell, MA.

Refugees in the United States have higher rates of some chronic diseases than US-born residents or other first-generation immigrants. This may be partially a result of dietary practices in the United States. There is limited information about which factors are related to dietary practices in refugee populations, particularly those who have been in the United States for 10 to 20 years. Research with Cambodian communities may be useful for examining the relationship between refugee characteristics and dietary practices. Two focus groups (n=11) and a survey (n=150) of Cambodian refugee women were conducted in Lowell, MA, from 2007 to 2008. χ(2) analyses, t tests, and analysis of variance tests were used to describe differences in dietary practices (24-hour recall and a targeted qualitative food assessment) by group characteristics. Higher acculturation was related to higher likelihood of eating brown rice/whole grains, and to lower likelihood of eating high-sodium Asian sauces. Higher education was related to higher likelihood of eating vegetables and fruits and to eating white rice fewer times. Nutrition education and receiving dietary advice from a health care provider were related to higher likelihood of eating whole grains/brown rice. Having a child at home was related to a higher likelihood of eating fast food. Among Cambodian refugees who have been in the United States for 10 to 20 years, dietary practices appear to have a relationship with acculturation (positive association), the interrupted education common to refugees (negative association), nutrition education from either programs or health care providers (positive association), and having a child at home (negative association).

Community research in other contexts: learning from sustainability science.

In health research, community based participatory research (CBPR) has seen remarkable growth as an approach that overcomes many of the ethical concerns raised by traditional approaches. A community of CBPR scholars is now sharing ideas and devising new approaches to collaborative research. Yet, this is occurring in isolation from similar efforts using different nomenclature and occurring outside of health research areas. There is much to be gained by bringing these parallel discussions together. In sustainability science, for example, scholars are struggling with the question of how stakeholders and scientists can coproduce knowledge that offers useful solutions to complex and urgent environmental problems. Like CBPR in health, sustainability science is denigrated for perceived lack of rigor because of its applied problem focus and lack of positivist approach. Approaches to knowledge creation in sustainability science involve "new" ideas such as wicked problems and agent-based modeling, which would be equally applicable to CBPR. Interestingly, sustainability research is motivated less by recognition of the corrosive effects of the inequality of power than from frustration at how limited the impact of research has been, a perspective that might be useful in CBPR, particularly in conjunction with the use of some borrowed tools of sustainability science such as wicked problem analysis and agent-based modeling. Importantly, the example of sustainability science has the potential to keep CBPR from entering into a new orthodoxy of how research should be done.

Long-term development of a "whole community" best practice model to address health disparities in the Cambodian refugee and immigrant community of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Cambodians in Lowell, Massachusetts, experience significant health disparities. Understanding the trauma they have experienced in Cambodia and as refugees has been the starting point for Lowell Community Health Center's whole community approach to developing community-based interventions. This approach places physical-psychosocial-spiritual needs at the center of focus and is attentive to individual and institutional barriers to care. Interventions are multilevel. The effect of the overall program comes from the results of each smaller program, the collaborations and coordination with the Cambodian community and community-based organizations, and the range and levels of services available through the health center.

Relationship between past food deprivation and current dietary practices and weight status among Cambodian refugee women in Lowell, MA.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated Cambodian refugee women's past food experiences and the relationship between those experiences and current food beliefs, dietary practices, and weight status. METHODS: Focus group participants (n = 11) described past food experiences and current health-related food beliefs and behaviors. We randomly selected survey participants (n = 133) from a comprehensive list of Cambodian households in Lowell, Massachusetts. We collected height, weight, 24-hour dietary recall, food beliefs, past food experience, and demographic information. We constructed a measure of past food deprivation from focus group and survey responses. We analyzed data with multivariate logistic and linear regression models. RESULTS: Participants experienced severe past food deprivation and insecurity. Those with higher past food-deprivation scores were more likely to currently report eating meat with fat (odds ratio [OR] = 1.14 for every point increase on the 9-to-27-point food-deprivation measure), and to be overweight or obese by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (OR = 1.28) and World Health Organization (OR = 1.18) standards. CONCLUSIONS: Refugees who experienced extensive food deprivation or insecurity may be more likely to engage in unhealthful eating practices and to be overweight or obese than are those who experienced less-extreme food deprivation or insecurity.

Explanatory models of asthma in the southeast asian community.

PURPOSE: To examine how two groups (parents and healthcare providers) perceive asthma in Southeast (SE) Asian children in the United States, and to address issues of access to asthma care. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Using Kleinman's Explanatory Models (EM) approach, semistructured interviews were used with 12 families and 26 providers. Families were interviewed in a clinic setting. Providers read a case example of a SE Asian child with asthma and were asked to anticipate the case family's EM of asthma. Data were analyzed using template analytic technique in which segments were clustered into etiology, causation, treatments, asthma impact, and access to asthma care. RESULTS: Families predominately followed current asthma practice guidelines, whereas providers believed that SE Asian families primarily followed cultural practices. Families described the severity and impact of asthma as more intense than the providers described the same items. While families identified barriers to care as difficulty getting appointments and unavailable providers, providers viewed family barriers to be predominately culturally based. Both groups noted the need for education and frequent healthcare visits as facilitators to care. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: This study suggests that important differences may exist between the way providers and SE Asian families perceive childhood asthma. Nurses are encouraged to ask the families in their care how they explain their children's asthma, thus facilitating more culturally competent care and increased ability to meet the family's needs. Implications for policy change relative to improving access to care to immigrant groups are also suggested.

Community-university partnerships: achieving the promise in the face of changing goals, changing funding patterns, and competing priorities.

An important challenge that community-university partnerships face is how to maintain themselves in the face of changing goals, priorities, and funding. Partnerships often form as a result of some sort of "spark:" an incident, perhaps, or the identification of a shared need or common concern. Often, external funding is sought to provide the majority of resources for the establishment of a partnership and for the implementation of the partnership's action plan. Whatever external funding is obtained is typically of short duration. The funding will not continue over time. And usually the funding comes with stipulations about allowable partnership approaches; inevitably the priorities of one funder will differ from those of another. These issues of the maintenance of partnership in the face of shifting funding and priorities are ones that confront most community-university partnerships. This article examines these issues through the lens of an environmental justice partnership that has existed for nearly a decade, has undergone many changes in who is involved, and has operated with funding from many different sources, including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the entities in the partnerships, while they share certain environmental objectives, are sometimes at odds on particular goals when the needs of the agencies differ. Further complicating this issue of continuity is the reality that partners, on occasion, must shift priorities after partnership goals are established. The experiences of this environmental justice partnership shed light on the kinds of struggles community-university partnerships face when they hope to avoid being undermined by the larger concerns of the funders or by the power brokers in their individual organizations. This article examines approaches that community-university partnerships might take to remain resilient in the face of changing goals, priorities and funding.

Creating community-based participatory research in a diverse community: a case study.

Communities struggle to create research guidelines for ethical collaborative research within their locale. In Lawrence, Massachusetts (USA) a collaborative group of community members and academic researchers, known as the Mayor's Health Task Force Research Initiative Working Group, took on the challenge of creating guidelines for ethical community-based research. This case study of the Task Force's work addresses questions of research ethics in a diverse community where families struggle with few resources and face many health disparities, under the often-intrusive and unhelpful scrutiny of researchers from the many nearby major research universities. Representatives from the city, community organizations, and research universities developed a set of core ethical principles for research partnerships, a list of criteria for agreements between partners, and a model to help guide researchers and community members toward equitable and mutually beneficial research. This model can be generalized to similar other communities.

Building on the strengths of a Cambodian refugee community through community-based outreach.

Literature and practice are limited on strategies to reach elder Southeast Asian refugees by using their strengths and resilience. This article presents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Cambodian Community Health 2010 Program in Lowell, Massachusetts, as a case example and provides refugee history, project background, community survey results about strengths and risks, literature on strengths-based approaches, outreach activities, and evaluation. The focus is elimination of health disparities in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. "Community conversations" and a daylong forum with community leaders were used to develop plans for outreach. A Cambodian Elders Council provided information and guidance used to refine the program. Key findings highlight involving elders in organizing events, avoiding reliance on literacy, integrating health promotion with socialization, using ties with Buddhist temples, developing transportation alternatives, and utilizing local Khmer-language media. Implications include applicability to other refugee communities with low literacy, high levels of trauma, limited English, and strong religious involvement.

What do regions want?: A case study of university-community relations.

We hear more and more about the necessity of "sustainable regional development" as an alternative to and defense against globalization. While we certainly agree with this notion, we ask what might prevent it from becoming yet another "top-down" development scheme with good intentions but dubious results. We would argue that no road to development is sustainable if it is not deeply democratic and reliant on an informed, concerned public; the expressed needs of the public must be an essential aspect of regional development. Our focus here is on the university, the main supplier of the experts and technologies utilized by the undemocratic processes of globalization, but it might also be a partner in a democratic process of regional sustainable development. To do this, however, experts in academia must resist the temptation to assume they know what is best and work in concert with community forces to define and create sustainable development. To put it simply, if experts and planners in the university want to know what a region wants and needs, they have to ask. What follows is a report on the experience of one university's attempt to do just that.