The Emergence of Environmental Health Literacy—From Its Roots to Its Future Potential

Abstract

Background:Environmental health literacy (EHL) is coalescing into a new subdiscipline that combines key principles and procedural elements from the fields of risk communication, health literacy, environmental health sciences (EHS), communications research, and safety culture. These disciplines have contributed unique expertise and perspectives to the development of EHL. Since 1992, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has contributed to the evolution of EHL and now seeks to stimulate its scientific advancement and rigor.Objectives:The principal objective of this article is to stimulate a conversation on, and advance research in, EHL.Discussion:In this article, we propose a definition of and conceptual framework for EHL, describe EHL in its social and historical context, identify the complementary fields and domains where EHL is being defined and implemented, and outline a research agenda. Extensive reviews of web and literature searches indicate that the concept of EHL is evolving rapidly, as are the definitions of its scope and inquiry. Although several authors have outlined different frameworks, we believe that a more nuanced model based on Bloom’s taxonomy is better suited to EHL and to future research in this area.Conclusions:We posit that EHL can potentially benefit the conduct and outcomes of community-engaged and health disparities EHS research and can ensure that the translation of research findings will lead to greater understanding of specific risks, reduction of exposures, and improvement of health outcomes for individuals and communities. We provide four recommendations to advance work in EHL.Citation:Finn S, O’Fallon L. 2017. The emergence of environmental health literacy—from its roots to its future potential. Environ Health Perspect 125:495–501; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409337

Exploring perceptions of fracking and environmental health in a 3-county population in South Texas

“…[26] EHL is an emerging and evolving concept that bridges shared theories from the fields of health literacy, risk communication, environmental health science, behavioral science, public health, and other social sciences to represent skills related to identification and use of environmental information. [27][28][29][30] A challenge to understanding and addressing the influence of poor EHL is the potential mismatch between the public's perceptions of exposure and related risks and the often complex terminology and numeracy associated with environmental health risk information. Messaging and dissemination of important environmental health information, including such information related to fracking, comes from various sources, family, friends, the media and written channels, and often includes specific numerical and technical information that may be difficult for many to interpret and translate in terms of risk.…”

“…Messaging and dissemination of important environmental health information, including such information related to fracking, comes from various sources, family, friends, the media and written channels, and often includes specific numerical and technical information that may be difficult for many to interpret and translate in terms of risk. [27,31,32] The National Institute of Environment Health Sciences (NIEHS) has been instrumental in advocating for the advancement in the field of EHL. [27,33,34] Among its strategic goals are "to increase scientific literacy and generate awareness of the health consequences of environmental exposures" and "to understand the disproportionate risks of disease and to define and support public health and prevention solutions in affected populations."…”

“…[27,31,32] The National Institute of Environment Health Sciences (NIEHS) has been instrumental in advocating for the advancement in the field of EHL. [27,33,34] Among its strategic goals are "to increase scientific literacy and generate awareness of the health consequences of environmental exposures" and "to understand the disproportionate risks of disease and to define and support public health and prevention solutions in affected populations." [35] Given identified gaps in understanding potential frackingrelated environmental health issues identified in the present study, we expect that the fracking knowledge-related questions used in our study may serve as a potential indicator of inadequate EHL.…”

“…Given the lack of a specific EHL assessment tools we are unable to explicitly assess the level of EHL in these communities. As pointed out by Finn and O'Fallon, [27] there is currently little understanding of the social and cultural contexts which inform the ways in which the general public understand environmental health risks. These social and cultural contexts may be particularly important to understanding environmental health-related attitudes and perceptions in vulnerable communities, such as those living near UOGD in the EFS.…”

The New Incinerator in Parma and the News from Newspapers - The Importance of Communication in Terms of "Environment and Health"

“…A good public health surveillance project should be more integrated with other informative systems to think of common general strategies and to promote health literacy in populations. [25,26] So it would be desirable to have a greater mutual cooperation between the press and the institutions in order to provide all the available information and make it more affordable, so that everyone can create an opinion as objective as possible.…”