Center for Health, Environment, and Justice

Today I had a phone interview with the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. It was great, and they described what I would do as an internship. If I chose to work with them this summer, which I am more and more learning towards, I will work with the Science Director to do applied research. Communities contact CHEJ when they suspect an environmental health related problem and want assistance. CHEJ helps them collect, analyze, interpret, organize, and use the data for political leverage to win environment/health struggles.

CHEJ's web site describes they community assistance program as the following:

"The core mission of CHEJ’s science and technical assistance is to demystify the scientific aspect of environmental health issues by evaluating technical reports and reviews, guiding communities through the maze of technical information, distinguishing good information from bad and translating jargon into plain language. Services include:

• Serving as an on-call technical advisor to groups.
• Reviewing and evaluating data and analyses from air, water and soil tests.
• Reviewing and evaluating technical reports, health studies and site proposals.
• Traveling to meet with groups to answer questions, educate the public about a local environmental health risk or evaluate scientific information or data.
• Preparing specific guidebooks, written for the layperson, on how to use technical information to win a community victory."

I was told that they are doing a current program in conjunction with Tufts University to go into communities, talk to communitiy members, and help them in the fields of capacity building and interpretation of scientific data. Sounds perfect, and I would be working with this program, doing research, helping analyze and interpret data for communities once I adjust to the work, and helping to write up reports for CHEJ, communities, and the general public.

CHEJ is located in Falls Church, VA, 7 miles outside of DC. Depending if my friend stays around in her apartment in DC, I might already have a place to stay. CHEJ also gives a $150 stipend and pays for local travel expenses. Like I said, so far I am leaning towards this heavily. I was a little torn because the idea of doing an internship on emergign infectious diseases and climate/ecosystem change looked really interesting as well, but this seems to much more hands on and community based I just can't say no. Plus I'll be close to DC.

Additional benefit: close to DC. This means...Universities? I was browsing through George Washington University's summer course offerings and this has some potential. They do offer night classes...in public health. CHEJ usually works their interns 4 days a week, normal work hours, 9-5. For instance, they offer a 1 credit course in Community Based Participatory Research from 6:10-8:40 on Tuesdays. Same with Climate Change and Public Health, on Thursdays. Hmmm. From Mid-May to the end of June. Potentially awesome. And this would take care of the whole "interest in climate change and human health thing". But also would give me actual course experience in research methods. But it also runs in with Bard class time. Bummer, but the song remains the same. I'm sure I can find at least one summer class somewhere in DC that fits my interests. It would make for such a good summer. And although I'm still going to see what I hear from other organizations, so far this one looks really great and the "interview" left a really good impression. Who knows, maybe I will even be able to use some GIS.