Reporting Results of a Community-Based In-Home Exposure Monitoring Study: Developing Methods and Materials

Background: Reporting exposure results to study participants provides information that can ideally be used to decrease harmful exposures, improve health, and prevent disease. In reality, we often do not fully understand how an environmental exposure contributes to disease. This is the case when reporting back indoor air exposures in the absence of regulations.

Objectives: We reported nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) results back to individual participants of an in-home study in Chelsea, Massachusetts. We aimed to provide participants with information on the pollutant concentrations in their homes and in their community and to suggest strategies for decreasing in-home exposures. Our goals were to improve environmental health literacy and empower residents to take action on air quality issues in their community. The main objective of this paper is to describe how we developed our report back process and materials.

Methods: Our team of academic and community partners developed a two-part report back process. The first part included a mailing tailored to every home containing daily indoor and outdoor NO2 and PM2.5 concentrations, community averages, outdoor standards and guidelines, and results from other indoor air quality studies for comparison. The second part included a community meeting for participants.

Conclusions: Our report back process and materials benefitted from the contributions of multiple diverse stakeholders. We recommend at least a two-part strategy for facilitating communication within the community and between community and academic researchers. The materials and methods can be easily adapted by other researchers to report back exposure results in other community-specific contexts.