Effective Actions Taken By Groups

Results

In many communities, active groups already existed and were working on the environmental health concerns identified. These active groups ranged in size from small volunteer groups to formal non-profits with 22 FTE's. The average group had 4 FTE staff persons. River Network was interested in finding out what types of action, groups had already embarked on, and more importantly, what forms of action groups were finding to be effective.

The following number of respondent groups indicated that they had taken these specific actions to address their local environmental health concerns: No Action - 10; Background Research - 49; Health Survey -23; Monitoring - 51; Meetings with Polluters - 53; Legal Action - 25; Political Action - 35; Public Education - 50; Direct Protest Action - 24; and Remediation - 25. We then analyzed the information groups gave us in terms of how effective they said the actions they'd taken had been. We created an Effectiveness Score by assigning 0 points if a group indicated the action was not effective, 1 point if the group indicated the action was effective and 2 points if the group indicated the action was very effective. We then weighted the sum of these numbers by the percent of respondents who chose that effectiveness rating. The result was then multiplied by 50, rendering the highest Effectiveness Score possible a 100, and the lowest Effectiveness Score possible a zero,. The results, in order of effectiveness, are as follows:

Discussion

It is encouraging that groups reported that their most effective action was to do background research. Obviously, gathering basic background information about any problem should prove an initial helpful first step. River Network plans to produce guidance documents to assist communities with these initial efforts. Public education and monitoring efforts were also listed as amongst the most effective actions groups took. Monitoring is of course an extension of gathering accurate information to understand the nature of a problem. Disseminating such information to community members provides everyone with a better understanding of what is going on. Groups did not report employing health surveys to be as effective, but this may be more a reflection of the complexities involved in conducting a proper epidemiological study and the limited help available to groups in this regard. River Network plans to survey groups more about this issue.