Using Photovoice to Tell a Story
The HERCULES Community Engagement Core, with guidance from the Stakeholder Advisory Board and HERCULES scientists , created the following infographic as a summary of research led by Stakeholder...
The Community Engagement Core
The Community Engagement Core (CEC) collaborates with community partners using an exposome approach to seek environmental justice and improve health in the metro Atlanta area.
Guided by a commitment to anti-racism, we aim to:
Create conversations between the Atlanta community and HERCULES
Increase the capacity of local communities to address their environmental health concerns
Guide and support HERCULES scientists in community engagement
Our Approach
By developing partnerships and building capacity among community members and scientists, the CEC aims to incorporate community concerns into the long-term research efforts of HERCULES investigators.
To achieve these aims, we use the following approaches:
Partnerships
Our work relies on strong partnerships, especially with our Stakeholder Advisory Board. Our Board, which includes local residents, non-profits, and government agencies, guides CEC activities and ensures community concerns about environmental health issues are incorporated into HERCULES. We also support community-engaged research partnerships through the HERUCLES Pilot Program and by recognizing partners for their community engaged work.
Learn about our SAB and partnership work
Community Resources
We create and provide environmental health resources relevant to the local community, including infographics and summaries of environmental health research
Roadshow and Grant Program
We conduct workshops with local communities to share the exposome concept, identify communities’ exposome-related perspectives and concerns and include those perspectives in future exposome science. We then provide grants for communities to address those concerns.
Current and past grant programs
Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR)
We support HERUCLES scientists who are interested in integrating community-engaged approaches into their research, facilitate community-scientist partnerships when appropriate, and prepare future scientists for community-engaged research.
Community Engagement Core Services
Community Engagement Highlights
Read our Community Engagement Core publications here.
- Clarence “Shaheed” Dubois Community Grant Program highlighted in Emory’s Public Health Magazine
- Results of 2013/2014 Mini-Grant “Proctor Creek Watershed Watch: A Photovoice Project” presented at 2015 U.S. EPA Community Involvement Training Conference
- Proctor Creek Coalition January 2015 Meeting Updates
- Clarence “Shaheed” Dubois Community Grant Program
- CEC activities in the news!
- Atlanta Community Forum: Environment, Health and Action
Community Engagement Activities
Using Citizen Science to Identify and Map Environmental Hazard Concerns
The HERCULES Community Engagement Core, with guidance from the Stakeholder Advisory Board and HERCULES scientists , created the following infographic as a summary of research led by Stakeholder...
Everyday Chemicals in your Exposome: DIY Cleaning Product Alternatives!
The HERCULES Community Engagement Core, with guidance from the Stakeholder Advisory Board and HERCULES scientists, created the following infographic series about everyday chemicals found in our...
April 13, 2022
HERCULES Publication: Defining the Exposome Using Popular Education and Concept Mapping With Communities in Atlanta, Georgia
The exposome concept provides a framework to better incorporate the environment into the study of health and disease and has been defined by academics to encompass all lifetime exposures including...
April 13, 2022
Eri Saikawa and Rosario Hernandez featured on NIEHS Podcast
In this episode of NIEHS’s Podcast, Environmental Health Chat, HERCULES Investigator Eri Saikawa and Rosario Hernandez, Executive Director of Historic Westside Gardens, discuss their...
December 7, 2021
“Community Grant Awardees Build Relationships and Address Environmental Health Issues”
HERCULES’s Clarence “Shaheed” DuBois Roadshow and Community Grant Program was recently featured in the NIEHS PEPH newsletter. This program continues to evolve over the years to enhance...
November 30, 2021
Learning what’s in our exposome at the Atlanta Science Festival
Families from Atlanta learned about the chemical toxicity of products in their home at the 2021 virtual Atlanta Science Festival. Using the Environmental Working Group’s Healthy Living app,...
November 4, 2021
HERCULES Supports Community Grantee Event
The Chapel Hill Organization, an Exposome Roadshow and Community Grant Program grantee in south Dekalb County, and partner organization on a HERCULES Pilot Grant, hosted a community event this past...
September 24, 2021
Engaging Multiple Communities to Define the Exposome
Our Community Engagement Core presented their work on learning the community’s definition of the exposome at the International Society for Exposure Science’s (ISES) Annual Meeting, held...