Community Engagement Core supports publication of coloring book for ‘budding eco-explorers’
In spring 2024, the Community Engagement Core of the Harvard Chan NIEHS Center provided a Community Action Fund (CAF) grant to the New England Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, generally referred to as the Region I PEHSU. This PEHSU, one of ten national PEHSU units, provides consultation, care, and education to address pediatric and reproductive environmental health concerns. The geographic reach of the Region I PEHSU is Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Within the region, special emphasis and outreach is provided to rural and environmental justice communities. The Region I PEHSU is located at Boston Children’s Hospital and is affiliated with the Cambridge Health Alliance.
The aim of the project was “to create a children’s coloring and activity book with the purpose of engaging and educating community members, while providing a creative outlet for children, that has environmental health and One Health educational components.” The One Health approach acknowledges the interconnectedness between the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment at large.
The outreach of the Region I PEHSU is accomplished through education of clinicians and public health professionals, health fairs, farmers markets, conferences of school health nurses and other events at Children’s Hospital, and in rural clinic and community settings. The scope of the outreach activities allows the Region I PEHSU to integrate clinical education around children’s and reproductive health with environmental health and to address “historical injustices… ongoing environmental racism, and… the existential threat of climate change.” Ann Backus, director of community engagement, calls this coloring book, titled Magic in the Wild: A Coloring Book for Budding Eco-Explorers, “a joyful lens into the promise of biodiversity and the role children can have in promoting One Health.”
