Health survey instrument development through a community-based participatory research approach: Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP-II) and Brazilian immigrants in Greater Boston.

Brazilians are among the fastest growing segment of immigrant populations in several states of the United States. Culturally appropriate and validated health survey instruments do not exist to adequately assess the health needs of this population. Through a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, a cross-cultural pilot project was conducted to develop and test a culturally-adapted Brazilian Portuguese-version of the health-promoting lifestyle profile II (HPLP-II) instrument with a convenience sample of 60 bilingual and bicultural Brazilian immigrants using a combined quasi experimental and focus group design.

Air pollution and odor in communities near industrial swine operations.

Background: Odors can affect health and quality of life. Industrialized animal agriculture creates odorant compounds that are components of a mixture of agents that could trigger symptoms reported by neighbors of livestock operations.

Objective: We quantified swine odor episodes reported by neighbors and the relationships of these episodes with environmental measurements.

Integrating epidemiology, education, and organizing for environmental justice: community health effects of industrial hog operations.

The environmental justice movement has stimulated community-driven research about the living and working conditions of people of color and low-income communities. We describe an epidemiological study designed to link research with community education and organizing for social justice. In eastern North Carolina, high-density industrial swine production occurs in communities of low-income people and people of color.

Environmental policies, politics, and community risk perception: case study of community contamination in Casper, Wyoming.

Objectives: We identify and explain factors that affected a community's perception of risk due to extensive industrial contamination and people's distrust of government agencies regarding the environmental investigations.

Methods: Intrinsic bounded case study methodology was used to conduct research about extensive environmental contaminations due to activities of an oil refinery in North Casper, Wyoming, and the citizens' response. Data were collected from multiple sources that included public testimonies, observations, public hearings and meetings minutes, newspaper articles, archived records obtained from federal and state environmental and health agencies, as well as industry records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Environmental justice research and action: a case study in political economy and community-academic collaboration.

Community-university partnerships increasingly are being created to study and address environmental injustices. This article describes a case study of one such effort and its contributions to a decade-long community struggle to curb the growth of industrial hog operations and their adverse health effects in the United States' rural south. Worldwide transformation of livestock production from family farms to large-scale industrial agricultural complexes has resulted in the degradation of local environments, with negative impacts on public health.

Patterns of agricultural pesticide use in relation to socioeconomic characteristics of the population in the rural U.S. South.

Residents of rural, agricultural areas where pesticides are used experience increased potential for pesticide exposure. In the rural U.S.

Promoting environmental justice through community-based participatory research: the role of community and partnership capacity.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) increasingly is being used to study and address environmental justice. This article presents the results of a cross-site case study of four CBPR partnerships in the United States that researched environmental health problems and worked to educate legislators and promote relevant public policy. The authors focus on community and partnership capacity within and across sites, using as a theoretical framework Goodman and his colleagues' dimensions of community capacity, as these were tailored to environmental health by Freudenberg, and as further modified to include partnership capacity within a systems perspective.