title: Reporting back environmental exposure data and free choice learning.
abstract: Reporting data back to study participants is increasingly being integrated into exposure and biomonitoring studies. Informal science learning opportunities are valuable in environmental health literacy efforts and report back efforts are filling an important gap in these efforts. Using the University of Arizona's Metals Exposure Study in Homes, this commentary reflects on how community-engaged exposure assessment studies, partnered with data report back efforts are providing a new informal education setting and stimulating free-choice learning. Participants are capitalizing on participating in research and leveraging their research experience to meet personal and community environmental health literacy goals. Observations from report back activities conducted in a mining community support the idea that reporting back biomonitoring data reinforces free-choice learning and this activity can lead to improvements in environmental health literacy. By linking the field of informal science education to the environmental health literacy concepts, this commentary demonstrates how reporting data back to participants is tapping into what an individual is intrinsically motivated to learn and how these efforts are successfully responding to community-identified education and research needs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, 1177 E Fourth Street, Rm. 429, Tucson, Arizona, USA. mdramire@email.arizona.edu.|Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. mdramire@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Monica D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Ramirez-Andreotta
authors.affiliation: Silent Spring Institute, Newton, MA, USA. brody@silentspring.org.
authors.forename: Julia Green
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Brody
authors.affiliation: Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. lothrop@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Nathan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lothrop
authors.affiliation: Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. miranda.loh@gmail.com.|Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, UK. miranda.loh@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Miranda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Loh
authors.affiliation: Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. pbeamer@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Paloma I
authors.initials: PI
authors.lastname: Beamer
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Department of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. p.brown@neu.edu.
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods*; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research / Q000379:methods*; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000379:methods; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States