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Funded
through a grant from the New Mexico Office of Border Health in the fall
2001, the Southern Area Health Education Center (SoAHEC) initiated a
community-based environmental health assessment project in southern New
Mexico. Northern Doña Ana County (greater Hatch area), and southern Luna
County (Columbus/Palomas along the U.S.-Mexico border) were chosen as pilot
sites for this project in an attempt to utilize the Protocol for Assessing
Community Excellence in Environmental Health (PACE-EH) model developed by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National
Association of County & City Health officials (NACCHO).
The
PACE-EH is a 13-step framework designed to involve the community in the
process of looking at local environmental health issues from the
community’s perspective and developing an action plan to address these
issues. This is accomplished through a series of tasks that 1) engages the
public in identifying environmental health issues, 2) collects necessary
and relevant information pertaining to community environmental health
concerns, 3) develops environmental health issue profiles, 4) ranks and
prioritizes the environmental health issues identified, 5) sets local
priorities for action and 6) develops an action plan.
In
retrospect, while portions of the PACE-EH process were successful,
particularly in Doña Ana County, it was determined that for southern New
Mexico, this model is probably more suited to an urban setting. The
networking that resulted from these PACE-EH efforts however, has resulted
in the establishment of a Solid Waste Committee in northern Doña Ana County
that is attempting to address many solid waste concerns in the
unincorporated communities; pesticide safety and worker rights trainings
and activities for southern New Mexico farm workers, the development of a
community environmental health assessment tool box, and many other laudable
efforts.
While
PACE-EH is no longer a focus of SoAHEC’s community-based environmental
health activities, the project continues to be funded and efforts are being
merged with the Environmental Health–Home Safety Project (both funded by
the New Mexico Office of Border Health) to create an environmental health
unit within SoAHEC where future activities will include, but not be limited
to: environmental health curriculum development, farm worker education,
First Aid/CPR training, and the provision of environmental health education
to elementary and middle school-aged children.
For
more information or questions about this project, please contact:
Jagan Butler
Phone :
505-646-3441, ext. 16
E-mail at: jabutler@nmsu.edu
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