Abstract
American Indians (AI) have the highest rate of severe physical housing problems in the U.S. (3.9%). Little information exists about the environmental hazards in AI homes. The purposes of this paper are to discuss challenges that were encountered when recruiting AI for a home-and employment-based environmental health assessments, highlight major successes, and propose recommendations for future indoor environmental health studies. The Center for American Indian Community Health (CAICH) and Children’s Mercy Hospital’s Center for Environmental Health and Allergy and Immunology Research Lab collaborated to provide educational sessions and healthy home assessments for AI. Through educational trainings, more than 240 AI were trained on the primary causes of health problems in homes. A total of 72 homes and places of employment were assessed by AI environmental health specialists. The top three categories with the most concerns observed in the homes/places of employment were allergens/dust (98%), safety/injury (89%) and chemical exposure (82%). While some information on smoking inside the home was collected, these numbers may have been underreported due to stigma. This was CAICH’s first endeavor in environmental health and although challenges arose, many more successes were achieved.
Highlights
Environmental exposures directly impact many health outcomes [1], and different strategies are necessary for reducing exposures specific to indoor environments [2,3]
Of American Indians (AI) are under the age of 18 and 4.9% are over the age of 65, meaning almost 1/4 of AI in the State of Kansas [18] are more susceptible to hazardous indoor environmental exposures and housing related risks [7,8,9]
In an effort to address additional environmental health disparities faced by AI, an area not previously explored by Center for American Indian Community Health (CAICH), we partnered with the Children’s Mercy Hospital’s Center for Environmental Health (CMH-CEH) and Allergy and Immunology Research Lab (CMH-AIRL) to launch a project that (1) raised awareness about environmental health; (2) educated community members, providers, and facilities workers about how to achieve safe and healthy indoor environments; and
Summary
Environmental exposures directly impact many health outcomes [1], and different strategies are necessary for reducing exposures specific to indoor environments [2,3]. AI have the highest rates of smoking of any racial/ethnic group in the U.S, with rates as high as 41%, compared to 21% to 24% for Whites and Blacks, meaning children are more likely to be exposed to environmental tobacco smoke [14,15]. Despite the high proportion of AI living in unsafe and unhealthy homes, AI children, there is little information in the literature about environmental hazards in AI homes. This lack of knowledge is a barrier to providing successful interventions targeted at health issues resulting from unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments. The purposes of this paper are to discuss challenges that were encountered when recruiting AI for a home-and employment-based indoor environmental health assessments, highlight major successes as the first undertaking of a project of this kind, and propose recommendations for future indoor environmental health studies
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