Models of Community-Engaged Scholarship in Environmental Health and Ecotoxicology

How can engaging with impacted communities improve the validity, relevance, and impact of scholarship in environmental health and toxicology? What roles do community-engaged scholars and practitioners play in ensuring that research with impacted communities is reciprocal, impactful, rigorous, and just? The Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the Duke University Superfund Research Center (DUSRC) employs a community responsive model that facilitates multi-directional communication and action between DUSRC research and impacted communities. In doing so, the CEC not only conducts primary research in partnership with community partners, but also takes on the roles of convening, research translation, outreach and education, and facilitating policy engagement. Drawing on examples of community-engaged scholarship on subsistence consumption of contaminated, wild- caught fish on the lower Cape Fear River, PFAS contamination of soil and well water with the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe, and soil contamination in Durham parks, this talk will explore the costs, benefits, challenges, and powerful potential of this approach. This seminar will be held in person in Grainger Hall room 1112 and online via Panopto. Click "More Event Information" to visit the seminar website for a link to attend virtually. Both attendance options are free and open to all.