The Crow Reservation community is exposed to high concentrations of environmental contaminants througha number of factors. These include: 1) widespread leasing of agricultural lands, which may reduce theincentive for operator environmental stewardship; 2) the lack of regulations on reservation lands to mitigateenvironmental effects of agriculture; 3) subsistence hunting and gathering and other traditional practices thatincrease exposure risk to environmental contaminants; 4) inadequate/outdated or non-existent water andwastewater treatment systems; and 5) the unequal distribution of mine and other toxic waste sites onReservation lands.This proposal describes a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) collaboration betweenEnvironmental Health faculty from Montana State University; the Crow Tribe's environmental, health, naturalresources and agriculture directors; health and civil engineering professionals from the Indian Health ServiceHospital in Crow Agency; science faculty from Little Big Horn College (LBHC) on the Crow Reservation; BigHorn County Commissioners and additional organizations and community members from the Crow Tribe.The major objective of this research is to build on an existing partnership between the University and theCrow community, including LBHC, to address environmental health hazards on the Crow Reservation,particularly in relation to the high rates of cancer in the Crow tribe and the anecdotal evidence fromcommunity members of cancer clusters that are believed to be related to poor quality water and otherenvironmental exposures. The community will participate in every phase of the work which will involve, 1)Establishing a sampling and analysis program to adequately assess contaminant loadings to drinking watersand subsistence foods; 2) Evaluating exposure pathways and subsistence and other cultural practices thatcontribute to exposure risk; 3) Communicating risks to community residents and developing and providingrecommendations for exposure mitigation and future monitoring.
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