Primary Submission Category: Environmental factors
Assessing and Collecting Environmental Samples Across Colonias in Hidalgo County, TX: Community-Engaged Strategies for Data Collection
Authors: Kayla Morales, Garett Sansom,
Presenting Author: Kayla Morales*
Collecting primary environmental and human toxicological data in vulnerable communities presents significant challenges due to historical distrust of researchers, logistical barriers from inadequate infrastructure, and socioeconomic obstacles that hinder participation. Without meaningful engagement strategies, data collection efforts risk low participation, potential biases, and unreliable findings. This work draws from efforts at the Texas A&M University Superfund Research Center and the Together for a Better Tomorrow program to highlight strategies for community-driven data collection in historically underserved areas. Specifically, we focus on methods designed to improve environmental sampling, risk assessment, and public health interventions in the Colonias of Hidalgo County, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. These communities face significant environmental and human health risks due to exposure to contaminants from agricultural runoff and failing infrastructure, particularly in water and sanitation systems. To ensure culturally competent and rigorous data collection, we will provide strategies for incorporating three key community-driven approaches that emphasize trust-building, co-participation, and transparent dissemination of findings.
- Utilization of a Promotora-led environmental sampling model, where community health workers are trained to conduct soil sampling across multiple Colonias. This participatory model increases accessibility and community trust while ensuring culturally appropriate data collection and risk communication.
- Creation and maintenance of Community Advisory Boards (CABs) to facilitate bidirectional communication between researchers and community members. CABs play a key role in study design, ensuring that sampling locations, exposure assessment methods, and toxicological endpoints align with community concerns and regulatory risk assessment approaches.
- Best practices for risk characterization and data dissemination efforts. Strategies for reporting findings to community organizations, individuals, and state authorities ensure that toxicological risk assessments lead to actionable public health interventions. The integration of human health risk assessment models, such as hazard quotient (HQ) and lifetime cancer risk (LCR) calculations, will be emphasized in communicating findings.
Preliminary data will be utilized to highlight the success of this model, including environmental sample collection within individuals’ homes, achieving a response rate of over 90%. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of Promotora-led engagement in overcoming traditional barriers to participation. Additionally, early spatial analysis of contaminants reveals significant variability across Colonias, highlighting the necessity of this approach as a crucial step in toxicological risk assessment efforts that rely on primary data collection to quantify exposure levels and evaluate potential health risks in affected populations.