1. What person, group or organization is being profiled, and why are they of interest to this project?
Air Alliance Houston is being profiled. They’re work is directly related to this project, as they focus on community understanding and involvement in air pollution.
While their focus is not on my specific topic (transportation), I've referenced them many times throughout this research (one study that had a strong focus on emissions), and it has not already been profiled by someone else.
2. What have they done – through research, or a public health program or education forum, for example-- that illustrates how they have worked to improve air pollution governance and environmental public health?
Ozone Theater Education Program: free air pollution and health education programs for elementary and middle school students.
Pesky Polluters: for kindergarten through second grade, students are introduced to the concept of air pollution and the differences between good and bad air quality.
Good Ozone, Bad Ozone: for third through fifth grade, students learn the difference between the ozone layer and ground-level ozone, and are introduced to the federal Air Quality Index.
Air Pollution Solutions: for middle school, students discuss what air pollution is, its sources, and what can be done about it.
Called Ozone Theater because many of the programs involve improve and acting out scenes related to air pollution.
This demonstrates a fun and interactive activity to educate children. The different levels show how air pollution understanding can develop with age.
Research (discussed further in Question 6).
Air Alliance Houston, Emerging Professionals of the Houston USGBC, Houston Tomorrow, the Rice Environment Club, and Transition Houston host the Houston Green Film Series, which aims to bring awareness and emphasis to environmental issues in Houston through film. After each film, a panelist of experts is invited to lead a discussion with the audience on the given topic.
3. What timeline of events illustrates how this way of addressing environmental public health has developed?
1988: The Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevent (GHASP) was formed by concerned citizens in a grassroots effort to prevent and eliminate smog in the Houston area.
1992: GHASP becomes a Texas nonprofit corporation.
1995: GHASP receives federal tax-exempt status.
1996: Mothers for Clean Air (MfCA) is formed as a Texas nonprofit, focusing on community-based outreach and advocacy.
1997: MfCA receives federal tax-exempt status.
2008: MfCA and GHASP decided to merge their organizations, to better accomplish their central goal of shaping policy on air quality and environmental health issues to protect public health.
2010: The organization is renamed Air Alliance Houston, and the formal mission is outlined as: “to reduce air pollution in the Houston region and protect public health and environmental integrity through research, education, and advocacy.”
4. Does this person, group or organization claim to have a new or unique way of addressing environmental public health? Does this approach point to or suggest problems with other approaches?
Air Alliance Houston has a primary focus on working with the community. They also attempt to work with industry leaders and the city to advocate for community needs.
This points to potential flaws in the standard approach for similar organizations, which is to have community outreach projects, but not to have community involvement be the number one priority.
For an organization focused on public health, it makes more sense to include the public as much as possible.
5. What data have they collected or used to support their approach to environmental public health? What visualizations of this data have been created?
Air Alliance Houston is one of many partners (including the American Lung Association) of Houston Clean Air Network.
Used to achieve their approach of increasing public awareness and involvement.
The website uses data from ozone monitors to project ozone levels and movement throughout the Houston area, which is represented on a shaded map. Regions on the map are colored according to the Air Quality Index (good, moderate, warning, unhealthy, very unhealthy, and hazardous).
Provides information on how to use the map, and what level of concern you should have under different conditions. The map is commonly either good or moderate. For moderate, they suggest "Only people who are unusually sensitive to ozone should consider limiting their exposure. This includes people with lung diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema; children; and the elderly."
Website available in both Spanish and English.
Does not mention specifically which monitors are used for the data, or who/ what organization controls those monitors.
Community One Pagers
Once a month, Air Alliance Houston produces an environmental quality assessment of a specific Houston community, with a different community being focused each month. This supports their approach to environmental justice.
Includes number of environmental complaints, environmental investigations, and environmental citations or notices of violations issued in the area. A graph is used to visual number of environmental complaints to the city of Houston in the past 12 months.
Also has a table outlining number of days in each air quality index zone for that month, and a calendar showing the each specific color coded according to the air quality index.
6. What research has the organization produced or drawn on in their initiatives – in the last year, and over the last decade?
Galena Park
Began to annotate official report in Week 6, needs to be completed.
Galena Park is a good area to focus on for environmental justice due to proximity to the Houston Ship Channel, and the large amount of traffic it brings through the area.
Air Alliance Houston conducted a community health impact survey, and community mapping workshop, and a community air monitoring project.
Utilized the organization's educational approach by allowing area high school students to conduct the health impact survey.
Survey respondents were 78% Hispanic, 13% white, and 9% black.
Found that limited access to health care is a major issue, and that concerns regarding health due to air pollution was high (74% were concerned about affects on their health). Found that while the adult rate of asthma in Texas is 12.7%, in Galena Park 16% of all adults have asthma and 24% of children.
Community mapping workshop was offered to the Galena Park public. This allowed the researchers to identify where community members think monitors should be placed.
Data collected with community-led air monitors.
Findings include:
Diesel pollution presents a serious and unacceptable health risk in the community, cancer risk due to diesel exposure may exceed 1 in 10,000
Galena Park must take actions to reduce diesel emissions, like banning old and dirty trucks and diverting trucks from Galena Park roads.
GHASP Reports
The earlier version of the organization, GHASP, produced many reports on air quality problems and solutions in Houston. All of these reports are available on the Air Alliance Houston website.
Air Alliance Houston has a research partnership with Baylor College of Medicine. The college received a grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which provides $2 million over 3 years to investigate the effects of a home-based environmental intervention program on the improvement asthma control and quality of life for African-American adults in the Houston area. Air Alliance Houston's Community Outreach Coordinator, Brian Butler, serves on the study's Community Advisory Board.
Rice University, The University Of Texas School Of Public Health, and Air Alliance Houston are among some of the research partners in an ongoing investigation of the metal recycling industry in Houston.
7. What kinds of technology and infrastructure do they rely on in the production of environmental health care?
Air Alliance Houston outlines two broad goals on their website. "(1) Empower citizens with research tools that allow them to gather their own data and become their own advocates. (2) Advance the field of research regarding air pollution and its public health impacts in Houston." source
These research tools are the primary technology Air Alliance Houston relies on. An example of such technology would be the community-led air monitors installed in the Galena Park research project.
Also aims to provide community with resources and the knowledge to interpret those resources. An example of such would be the technology that produces and communicates the TCEQ ozone forecasts.
8. What social ecology does this person, group or organization work within, and how did it shaped their way of conceiving and engaging asthma?
The organization has very few employees, just an executive director, a communication outreach director, a community outreach coordinator, and an office manager. The limited staff indicates a social ecology that relies on community input and assistance.
The board of directors members have diversity in experience and employment. Some of the members include a Texas State Representative, the Parks and Recreation Director of Galena Park, and a Physician at the Vital Allergy & Asthma Center. This implies collaboration because all members have vastly different knowledge and skill set.
9. What events or data seem to have motivated their ways of thinking about and engaging environmental health?
Air Alliance Houston's evolution in focus mimics the development of public understanding of air pollution. The original organization, GHASP, focused only on smog prevention. In many air pollution movements, smog is the first pollutant to receive attention because it visually causes alarm. Their focus has since expanded to a much broader focus on all sources of all pollutants, which likely is motivated by and helps further a public shift to a more holistic understanding of air pollution.
10. What funding enables their work and possibly shapes their way of thinking about environmental health?
Before Air Alliance Houston formed, Mothers for Clean Air and GHASP were part of a three year collaborative project, along with several other organizations, to create a comprehensive Air Quality Toolkit. Mother for Clean Air were the primary leaders of the project. The toolkit provides information for community members to know how to effectively communicate their environmental needs and concerns to local governmental agencies, industry, and neighbors. The project was funded by the EPA. This encourages Air Alliance Houston to educate Houston citizens on the processes already set in place by the EPA to allow for a public voice.
For more current projects involving community outreach and setting up monitors. the organization has been funded by the EPA, the Houston Endowment, and the Kresge Foundation. The Houston Endowment is a philanthropic foundation governed by a board of directors that contributes to causes for arts and culture, education, the environment, health and human services in the Houston area. It was started by the Jones family in 1937. Organizations apply and the foundation grants them money and essentially does not interfere with the project beyond that. The Kresge Foundation is a $3.5 billion private, national foundation. Their health initatives aim to "help communities overcome the economic and social disadvantages that contribute to poor health so that all Americans have the chance to enjoy productive, self-determined lives," and they also fund many environmental projects.
11. What in the history of this person, group or organization likely shaped the way they conceived or and engage environmental health?
The merging of the two organizations, GHASP and Mothers for Clean Air, appears to have shaped Air Alliance's approach to environmental health. GHASP focused on smog reductions, and primarily used data and science to shape policy with city lawmakers. Mothers for Clean Air was more focused on community outreach, and the combination of these two organizations has led to one, all inclusive approach.
12. What does this person, group or organization seem to find methodologically challenging or concerning in dealing with environmental health?
One concern outlined in their vision for Houston for 2020 is funding for their environmental health projects. They plan to seek a corporate funder for Ozone Theater, as well as find new grant opportunities. One new fundraising campaign idea they have is a competition fundraiser against Dallas to encourage wealthy Houston citizen's and corporation's to donate.
They claim they have taken on community based research as funding allows, and wish they could do more.
13. What kinds of governance are (implicitly or explicitly) called for in the way they think about environmental health?
Air Alliance Houston is a movement towards a more open form of governance that encourages participation and understanding in stakeholders.
Works to advocate for policies that will improve air quality (i.e. the suggestion to add governance via laws on idling vehicles in the Galena Park report).
14. How can The Asthma Files enable or supplement this way of thinking about environmental health, and the work of this person, group or organization?
The organization itself has a good view and approach to environmental health through actively seeking community engagement. The Asthma files could supplement its work by using global perspectives and the successes of other countries to help Air Alliance Houston shape the community attitude towards air pollution, and increase their desire to participate with the organization.
2. What have they done – through research, or a public health program or education forum, for example-- that illustrates how they have worked to improve air pollution governance and environmental public health?
3. What timeline of events illustrates how this way of addressing environmental public health has developed?
4. Does this person, group or organization claim to have a new or unique way of addressing environmental public health? Does this approach point to or suggest problems with other approaches?
5. What data have they collected or used to support their approach to environmental public health? What visualizations of this data have been created?
6. What research has the organization produced or drawn on in their initiatives – in the last year, and over the last decade?
7. What kinds of technology and infrastructure do they rely on in the production of environmental health care?
8. What social ecology does this person, group or organization work within, and how did it shaped their way of conceiving and engaging asthma?
9. What events or data seem to have motivated their ways of thinking about and engaging environmental health?
10. What funding enables their work and possibly shapes their way of thinking about environmental health?
11. What in the history of this person, group or organization likely shaped the way they conceived or and engage environmental health?
12. What does this person, group or organization seem to find methodologically challenging or concerning in dealing with environmental health?
13. What kinds of governance are (implicitly or explicitly) called for in the way they think about environmental health?
14. How can The Asthma Files enable or supplement this way of thinking about environmental health, and the work of this person, group or organization?