Community Gardening
The UAB Superfund Research Center team members partnered with the residents and master gardener of the Norwood Community in North Birmingham to restore a community garden. There were previously seven different community gardens and the goal is to restore each garden and create a culture of family gardening in a community setting where neighbors work together to maintain them. Community residents including the Norwood Neighborhood Association President joined in to pull weeds, cut grass, and care for the raised beds. At the end, each person was allowed to harvest some of the fresh vegetables to take home.
Health and Wellness Outreach
During COVID, the access to community events and activities did not exist. Our community engagement core was able to purchase COVID safe items such as face masks, face shields from our very own Project 5, sanitizer, and literature on COVID as well as preventative measures. Individual packages of over 100 were constructed for each of our 6 neighborhoods and distributed within each community by the leadership of the neighborhood. Keisha Brown hosted a giveaway in her neighborhood that involved packaged food items and snacks and participants were able to receive the COVID packages.
Mobile Wellness and Mobile Market
The LHSA Mobile Wellness van is focused on making good health simple. The mobile unit brings comprehensive health screenings, at no cost, to community members by identifying health risks based on indicators such as height, weight, BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar; and other health risks. We participate at scheduled community events to offer spirometry testing as an extension to the existing health panel. By participating in this initiative, community members are able to have point of care screening of their lung function and on site interpretation and recommendations can be suggested.
The Mobile Market is a community effort that travels a refrigerated van with fresh fruits and veggies, other produce, and even a variety of frozen meats for selection. Community members are able to earn vouchers for the market by attending a wellness session and during the wait to run lab panels, they are escorted to the market to grocery shop. This helps to bridge a gap of access to fresh food and groceries for many residents.
Superfund Lung Ambassadors
The Superfund Lung Ambassadors is a community-centered initiative to deepen the interest of high school students in science, research, and health-related fields such as environmental and public health. This program is designed to help identify and develop motivated students to align their interests with opportunities that will lead to pathway discovery for their future. Students are able to participate in a variety of activities as offered, including: CPR and Basic Life Support certification, mock interviews and professional prep sessions, educational seminars from a variety of fields, and others. We have provided tools for the recycling program to enable the students to travel between the different floors of the school to recycle plastics. The students all received clear water bottles, a requirement of the district, to help ensure safety among the students. The incorporation of environmental health knowledge surrounding environmental exposures to heavy metals and the importance of lung health allows the students to demonstrate competency and showcase learned concepts and meeting objective standards in personalized projects.
Public Health Influencer Summer Institute
The Public Health Influencer Summer Institute is a free summer enrichment program open to high school students who are interested in public health, environmental health, chronic and infectious disease prevention, epidemiology, or social/environmental justice. Students learn about public health and its impact on communities. Students will participate in hands-on experiences and learn from health, healthcare, and environmental health experts. Students participate in immersive field experiences with multiple site visits throughout central Alabama including Birmingham and Montgomery.
