Community-engaged Research

Issues: Smartphones and other mobile devices have become important tools for collecting wellness and personal health information. To take advantage of this potential, an environmental justice organization is developing an app to help citizen scientists collect water samples and share water quality data.

The Imperial Project was a collaboration between community organizations, academia, and state partners created to investigate levels of particulate matter, a criteria air pollutant, in the highly impacted community of Imperial County. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) techniques were used to ensure that community members were engaged in each step of the research process.