Antioch Professor Surveys Health of Yellow Springs
By Liz MacDonald '04
Ann Filemyr - Professor of Journalism, Communications and
Environmental Studies - has designed a participant-action
research project seeking to educate, empower and connect the
communities of Antioch College and Yellow Springs. Last September
Filemyr received an $18,000 grant from Yellow Springs Instruments,
Inc. (YSI) to fund an environmental health survey of Yellow
Springs residents.
Filemyr sees this project as an opportunity to raise awareness
of community health and environmental issues in both students
and residents. "The purpose of community-based research
is to give participants the opportunity to generate data by
having control over what to ask as well as having some authority
over what is done with the information once it's received,"
Filemyr says. "For that reason I am facilitating a process
which requires the direct involvement of both students and
Yellow Springs residents in gathering survey data."
Filemyr has been a faculty member at the College and a resident
of the Village for 13 years. In addition to years of writing
and teaching about environmental issues, Filemyr has served
as a faculty sponsor for the Environmental Field Program (EFP).
EFP students have assisted with environmental health surveys
in Cincinnati, Columbus and Louisiana. This project will conduct
the first in-depth health survey in the Village. It will provide
baseline data about the health of villagers, as well as discovering
whether there are any correlations between environmental contamination
and illness. The two-year project began in the fall of 2003
and will wrap up in the summer of 2005.
In 2003, YSI was ordered to spend $95,000 on supplemental
environmental projects (SEP) as part of their environmental
contamination settlement with the state of Ohio. Five local
projects, including Filemyr's Yellow Springs Community Health
Project, received funding.
Filemyr has involved a number of past and present Antiochians.
Monica Vargas '05 served as her
fall co-op research assistant and helped develop the survey
instrument. Filemyr and Vargas held three public meetings
seeking community input. One of these was a focused meeting
with Yellow Springs healthcare providers. Twyla
Clark '04, is her spring co-op research assistant and
is working with Christine Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology,
on developing the data entry process.
Ann Filemyr, Professor of
Journalism, Communications
and Environmental Studies
The next ten months of the project are devoted to gathering
data. The project relies heavily on volunteers to administer
the surveys. Filemyr has enlisted the help of her Environmental
Journalism class and students in the Ecology and Feminism
class taught by Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Colette Palamar. Geoffrey "Jahwara" Giddings, Associate
Professor of African/African American Studies, has also become
involved in conducting surveys in the local African American
community. Community Responsibility Scholars Javier
Briones '05 and Chris Farber '04
have been active in establishing the Yellow Springs Environmental
Health Project office in South Hall. Other local volunteers
include alumna Joan Horn '56 and
faculty emeritus Walt Tulecke.
The survey contains 56 questions and covers a broad range
of topics. Some questions focus on health problems and disease,
others on health care and insurance. Additional questions
explore public attitudes and definitions of health. Residents
are also asked to share their perspectives on the physical
and social environment of Yellow Springs.
The surveys will be taken door to door and to select locations,
such as the Senior Center, the Children's Center, the Emporium,
and the Curl Gymnasium on campus. Survey respondents must
live within the 45387 zip code. Filemyr plans to obtain a
sample that will be demographically accurate for Yellow Springs.
"This is a slow process. We're trying to get a large
enough sample so that the data will be meaningful," she
says.
After the data is gathered, it will be analyzed and presented
to the community. Filemyr plans to use maps to show where
groundwater contamination has already been documented. Then
using survey results, cancer, leukemia, and other illnesses
will be indicated on the map to create a picture of the ways
environmental contamination may be affecting the community's
health. "These are correlations. We may not be able to
prove causation, but we can show correlation," she says.
Filemyr plans to present the results of the surveys and the
mapping project in the spring of 2005 at an "Environmental
Health Summit" for local residents.
The Summit will serve as a place to share the results of
the study, dialogue, and outline any future action based on
the results. This project provides a snapshot of the community's
environmental health, and the Summit will be a place to address
concerns and establish goals for improving the health of the
community. The data from this survey could be revisited years
from now to judge any differences in the health of the community.
Because of the broad range of questions asked, numerous
issues could be explored in further research and analysis.
Filemyr states, "There will be so many ways to use the
survey data. You could compare the health of men and women.
You could compare insurance coverage of households with children
to households without children. You could compare attitudes
about the local environment held by members of different racial
and ethnic groups. You could do a whole research project on
alternative or complementary medical practices here in Yellow
Springs as we are asking a series of questions about treatment
choices."
This project fits into the larger framework of the Environmental
Justice Movement, which frames individual human health as
both a community issue and an environmental issue. Filemyr
explains, "This project seeks to empower the community
by providing them with the opportunity to gain knowledge of
themselves through their own efforts. We can then take action
based on that knowledge." 
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