Improving Health in Environmental Justice Communities with Data, Good Food and Water

Encouraging locally grown food for increased nutritional value is undermined by elevated heavy metals in water and soil in which food is grown and could result in a public health crisis. Extremely vulnerable communities have long standing struggles with access to clean water and soils as the result of environmental injustice. The Culinaria Center for Food Law, Policy and Culture supports urban gardeners and farms to increase local food production in New Orleans. In doing so, however, they strive to understand how contaminants - specifically lead - affect locally grown food. In partnership with public health scientists and students at the Boston University School of Public Health, this effort aims to develop tools and methodologies to establish linkages between lead in the soil and water resources by using existing data and identify data gaps where local sampling will be conducted. Potential health impacts will be determined based on modeling and geospatial modeling of lead concentrations with existing elevated blood lead level data in people in the local community. All data, models and analyses will be made accessible to the Culinaria community, for dissemination to other efforts in Louisiana and beyond. This collaboration will facilitate the communication of local water and soil contamination status and its impacts on the food system to community members, farmers, gardeners, and policymakers. Improved knowledge and understanding in the community will facilitate a safer, and more supported, local food system.