This case study of community and university research partnerships utilizes previously developed principles for conducting research in the context of Native American communities to consider how partners understand and apply the principles in developing community-based participatory research partnerships to reduce health disparities. The 7 partnership projects are coordinated through a National Institutes of Health-funded center and involve a variety of tribal members, including both health care professionals and lay persons and native and nonnative university researchers. This article provides detailed examples of how these principles are applied to the projects and discusses the overarching and interrelated emergent themes of sharing power and building trust.
Growing accumulations of fuel, changing climates, and residential development in forested landscapes have accelerated the risk of wildland fire, particularly in the western United States. The magnifying level of risk of fire in the urban-wildland interface requires multiple actors implementing coordinated fuel management, fire suppression, and community protection activities. The successful implementation of such actions is built upon trusting relationships in fire protection planning process. Trust is fundamental to cooperative human relationships and natural resource planning literature increasingly cites lack of trust as a major issue for plan implementation. This study of two community wildland fire protection planning processes revealed the importance of transparency in decisions, effective leadership, consensus on the framing of risk, and planning scale in affecting trust. Based on these results, five suggestions are offered as necessary conditions to promote effective community wildland fire protection plans.
The impacts of climate change are having negative consequences on agricultural communities in the United States and other regions of the world. More specifically, these impacts are expected to increase in both scale and complexity and will continue to pose challenges both in terms of agricultural production and capacity. The purpose of this study was to understand ranchers' and farmers' perceptions of climate change's impact on their businesses and their mental well-being in a rural U.S. western state. Surveys were administered online and in-person to farmers and ranchers in fall of 2017. Descriptive statistics and correlational tests were conducted to evaluate if climate risk perception was related to levels of mental distress. Open-ended survey questions explored specifically how climate change is impacting mental well-being. The majority of respondents agree that climate change is having an impact on agricultural business, and nearly three quarters of respondents are experiencing moderate to high levels of anxiety when thinking about climate change and its effects on agricultural business. A moderate correlation was observed between climate risk perception and climate-related anxiety. Qualitative data showed the impact of climate change on profitability was perceived as the main cause of distress. This study demonstrates that climate change is generating anxiety and distress for farmers and ranchers. To maximize public health preparedness efforts, interventions are warranted to provide climate adaptation education and therapeutic outreach specific to agricultural workers experiencing economic struggle in the context of climate change.
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