Designing Equitable, Transparent Community-Engaged Disaster Research.

ABSTRACT

Disaster research faces significant infrastructure challenges regional and federal coordination, access to resources, and community collaboration. Disasters can lead to chemical exposures that potentially impact human health and cause concern in affected communities. Community-engaged research, which incorporates local knowledge and voices, is well-suited for work with communities that experience impacts of environmental exposures following disasters. We present three examples of community-engaged disaster research (CEnDR) following oil spills, hurricanes, and wildfires, and their impact on long-term social, physical, and technical community infrastructure. We highlight the following CEnDR structures researcher/community networks; convenient research tools; adaptable data collection modalities for equitable access; and return of data.