Community Science as a Pathway for Resilience in Response to a Public Health Crisis in Flint, Michigan

Abstract

While the story of the Flint water crisis has frequently been told, even sympathetic analyses have largely worked to make invisible the significant actions of Flint residents to protect and advocate for their community. Leaving the voices of these stakeholders out of narratives about the crisis has served to deepen distrust in the community. Our project responds to these silences through a community-driven research study aimed explicitly at elevating the frame of Flint residents in and around the Flint water crisis. This paper describes the coming together of the research team, the overall project design for each of the three research efforts, and lessons learned. The three sub-projects include: (1) a qualitative analysis of community sentiment provided during 17 recorded legislative, media, and community events, (2) an analysis of trust in the Flint community through nine focus groups across demographic groups (African American, Hispanic, seniors, and youth) of residents in Flint, and (3) an analysis of the role of the faith-based community in response to public health crises through two focus groups with faith based leaders from Flint involved with response efforts to the water crisis. Our study offers insight for understanding trust in crisis, which could be valuable to other communities and researchers seeking to address similar situations. The project offers community science as a model for considering community engagement in research as part of the process of resilience.

Producing actionable science in conservation: Best practices for organizations and individuals

“…The majority of our respondents (88%) indicated that lasting and meaningful collaborations were key to ensuring that the science produced is salient, incorporated into the decision‐making process, and valued. This finding aligns with the findings of other work on conservation (Clark, van Kerkhoff, Lebel, & Gallopin, 2016; Enquist et al, 2017; Pretty & Smith, 2004; Winter & Cvetkovich, 2010; Young et al, 2016) and on the relationship between scientists and practitioners (Carrera et al, 2019; Irwin & Wynne, 1996; Suryanarayanan & Kleinman, 2013).…”

Gender and Presence of Children: Examining Media Uses, Informational Needs, and Source Preferences during the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis

“…According to some reports, officials withheld information from the public which likely evoked distrust in official messages about the water crisis (Morckel & Terzano, 2018). In Flint, distrust even broadened to include the scientific community and nongovernmental experts (Carrera et al, 2019). Thus, distrust in official crisis communication could have impacted respondents' media uses, informational needs, and source preferences.…”

The Flint water crisis

“…While Edwards blamed the controversy on opportunistic “bad actors” unfairly criticizing him, spreading fear and pseudo‐science, and seeking to exploit the water crisis for their own benefit (Roy & Edwards, ), others, including some of his erstwhile activist collaborators, pointed to an underlying accountability deficit at the heart of his work in and on Flint (Pauli, ). Other collaborations between residents and academics in response to the crisis have been less contentious, showing that scientific research purporting to be community‐oriented can benefit from explicitly acknowledging power differentials between researchers and their lay collaborators, working within local accountability structures like community ethics review boards, and according local partners substantive control over the various phases of the research enterprise (Carrera et al, ).…”