The Sierra Fund, has recently released an anonymous online survey, in English and Spanish, designed to gauge community understanding of the unique environmental health impacts associated with the Gold Country. These include (1) mercury exposure through the consumption of locally-caught contaminated fish; (2) exposure to dust with heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and asbestos; (3) water quality and access needs; and (4) wildfire threats and associated dangerous air quality.
The purpose of The Sierra Fund’s Environmentally Healthy Communities Program is to promote public health in a region with multiple exposure pathways to legacy environmental health hazards. The Sierra Fund has developed a suite of projects to increase community access to information and resources that protect public health. The goal now is to identify the greatest concerns of the communities we serve and to ensure that vulnerable populations are empowered to protect themselves from environmental health hazards.
By surveying the community, The Sierra Fund hopes to effectively and responsively promote community health in our area. The Sierra Fund first administered the survey to the public at The Sierra Fund’s 2018 Environmental Health Summit, held in Grass Valley. Since that time, The Sierra Fund has gathered Environmental Health Surveys from over 130 English-speaking and 30 Spanish-speaking community members.
The survey can be found at the following links:
English Version: https://sierrafund.org/community-environmental-health-survey/
Spanish Version: https://sierrafund.org/encuesta-comunitaria-sobre-la-salud-ambiental/
Please take a few minutes to take this 30 question survey and share the link broadly so that data can be gathered and targeted public health solutions can be developed in a region impacted by the Gold Rush.
