Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)
March 20, 2015
Communicating risk to the public is important for mitigating existing exposures or preventing future exposures that may adversely affect health. However, communicating effectively requires using appropriate methods and techniques. Scientists and communication specialists have been examining the impact that different types of risk communication have played in real and perceived public health risks in order to guide translational efforts. Such research has identified optimal approaches for how messages can be communicated to achieve the desired results. This webinar features two investigators from the NIEHS-funded Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium who have developed communication approaches for at-risk populations in the context of disaster events. They discussed approaches for building trust and respect with research partners, creating culturally sensitive communications, and delivering actionable risk messages to individuals and communities.
Presentations
- Communicating Risk / Determining Risk: Developing Multi-Lateral Communication Mechanisms with At-Risk and High-Risk Populations – David Abramson, Ph.D., M.P.H.
- Developing Respectful Community-Academic Relationships Fosters More Effective Risk (and Science) Communication – Jeffrey Wickliffe, Ph.D.
Experts
David Abramson, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an Associate Professor of Public Health at New York University; the founder-director of its program on Population Impacts, Recovery, and Resiliency; and a Co-Investigator of one of the NIEHS-funded Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium projects, the Women and Their Children’s Health Study, in partnership with the LSU School of Public Health.
Jeffrey Wickliffe, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Trained as an environmental toxicologist and health risk assessor, he has been working with communities primarily along the Gulf Coast on environmental health concerns and projects for the past eight years. He has spent much of his time in community-based efforts developing relationships and partnerships to better address community environmental health concerns as well as to bolster environmental health literacy, especially in southeast Texas and southeast Louisiana. Following the Deepwater Horizon accident, in partnership with community organizations dealing with environmental health questions from their constituents, he helped to develop funded projects to address some of those questions. Jeff also conducts human biomarker research and basic, bench laboratory experiments to investigate environmental health issues in more controlled settings. This has helped him, along with his community partners, to develop more effective communication practices for translating complex scientific information into more understandable and actionable material.
We want your feedback!
Send comments, questions, and suggestions for future webinar topics to peph@niehs.nih.gov.
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