ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
A quarterly update increasing awareness and understanding of
the interaction between human health and the environment
A Quarterly Update
Message from the
Editor
Welcome to the newest issue of
the Environment, Health and
Societj Bulletin Jocused on
mixed methods
Page 1
Issue 3 - Spring 2012
Featured Method-
Mixed Method
When used together, qualita-
tive and quantitative research
methods can make a powerful
combination. Both methods
reveal different but highly
relevant information
Page 2
Featured Science
Article (Abstract)
Factors Influencing Food
Buying Tractices in Residents of
a Low-Income Food Desert and
a Low-Income Food Oasis
Conferences &
Opportunities
Opportunities to learn more
about mixed research methods
and present research findings.
Page 9
EHS Program
Update: Open/New
Announcements
Updates on the EHS program
and new announcements on
fonding opportunitiesJrom
NCER
Page 10
A Conversation with
Morgan Levy
Mixed methods provide the
means to research novel
questions about water demands
in the San Joaquin River Delta
in California
Page 11
Resources at your
Fingertips
Keep current with resource
links, training opportunities,
courses and mentoring tips
Page 13
Messag^^^m^
the Editor
Devon Payne-Sturges
National Center for Environmental Research
Welcome to the new Environment,
Health and Society research methods
bulletin. Every quarter, this bulletin
will feature a method for evaluating the
interaction of human health and the
environment, explaining and providing
information and news about the featured
method.
This bulletin seeks to bridge the
gap across disciplines in an effort
to transform human health and
environmental protection. In this
edition of the bulletin we feature an
examination of the application of
mixed methods within environmen-
tal economics. EPA's Matt Weber
and Paul Ringold harness both quali-
tative and quantitative techniques
in order to reveal information on
environmental choices. EPA STAR
Fellow, Morgan Levy, shares her
plans to integrate qualitative and
quantitative data in her analysis of
water use in the San Joaquin River
Delta in Central Valley, California.
Her work aims to better understand
both the amount of water used and
the relevant social, economic and
political factors.
Each issue of the bulletin will
also include information about
conferences, resources and articles
about research methods.
EHS Bulletin listserv is sponsored
by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and managed through
the EPA's National Center for En-
vironmental Research (NCER) in
the Office of Research and Develop-
ment (ORD).
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EHS Bulletin

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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
Ecosystems and People: Qualitative
Matt Weber, EPA Post-Doc Economist
Paul Rinaold, EPA Research Ecoloaist
Environmental management
issues are about choices. Society
decides what aspects of the envi-
ronment to protect. Implicitly or
explicitly, our actions have envi-
ronmental consequences, whether
planned or accidental. Since we
can't preserve or restore every-
thing to be free of human impact,
somehow our collective judgments
are needed.These judgments are
inherently human-based, and there-
fore benefit from the application of
social science methods and insights.
We discuss how mixed methods
in environmental economics - com-
plementary qualitative and quan-
titative studies - can shed light on
environmental choices. Qualitative
techniques can be used to establish
what in the environment is impor-
tant, while quantitative techniques
can be used to establish how impor-
tant it is. We introduce focus groups
and interviews for qualitative study,
and ecological valuation for quanti-
tative study. We begin by describing
the quantitative context.	
Qualitative Research can
BE APPLIED TO UNDERSTAND
WHAT ECOLOGICAL UNITS ARE
IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE.
Such results are not
MEANT FOR POPULATION
INFERENCE BUT ARE USEFUL IN
FORMULATING HYPOTHESES
AND UNDERSTANDING THE WAYS
PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THINGS.
Techniques include focus
GROUPS AND INTERVIEWS.
How do we know if current
environmental practices are too lax,
or too strict? The costs of ecological
improvements are usually relatively
easy to characterize, the benefits are
typically harder to quantify. How far
should environmental protection go
in pursuing ecological benefits? In
addition to gauging overall benefits,
distributional impacts are impor-
tant; who bears the costs and who
benefits? These are precisely the
types of difficult questions EPA's
Regulatory Impact Analyses (RIAs)
face (e.g. US EPA, 2010). An RIA is
required by Executive Order 12866
for proposed major environmental
regulations, and is also required at
retrospective intervals for major
environmental laws already in place.
Work on RIAs at EPA is essentially
continuous. A substantial portion of
RIAs is dedicated to environmental
impacts that directly affect human
health. In contrast, our focus is on
environmental impacts independent
of their important impacts on hu-
man health, which we term "eco-
logical impacts".
Quantitative Research can
BE APPLIED TO ASSESS IMPACTS
ON POPULATIONS OF PEOPLE
FROM ECOLOGICAL CHANGES.
Population inference is the
GOAL OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY,
BUT INSIGHT IS WEAKENED
WITHOUT PAIRED QUALITATIVE
WORK.
EHS Bulletin

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ENVIRONMENT
Ecological benefits can be
estimated in dollar terms1, allow-
ing their inclusion in cost-benefit
analyses, one component of RIAs.
Monetized ecological values have
two main compartments, "market",
and "non-market". Non-market
ecological values have no obvious
unit or price. For example, people
benefit from forests in a market
sense due to timber sales, and in a
non-market sense from beautified
hiking trails. Non-market values also
include "non-use" values, for exam-
ple, appreciation that a wilderness
area exists even if it is not directly
experienced. Non-market values
can be large and therefore should
be considered in decisions. Non-
market values have been supported
by numerous distinguished reviews,
e.g. Arrow et al. (1993) and the US
National Research Council (2004).
Non-market ecological values form
a quantitative backdrop for this
article.These values are frequently
uncounted for three reasons:
1.	The ecological units of non-
market goods and services
are unclear
2.	Changes in these ecological
units are not modeled
3.	The values of changes in
non-market ecological units
are not modeled
Rectifying these problems is
necessary for successful non-market
valuation. In order to develop origi-
nal estimates for a given case study,
natural science modeling is needed
for step 2, and non-market valuation
]The reader should note there is a diversity of social
our focus - establishing ecological units - is relevant
HEALTH
is needed for step 3. Non-use values
can be a significant component of
non-market values. To be inclusive
of non-use values, the only known
empirical valuation techniques are
"stated preference" techniques,
entailing human subjects surveys.
These survey instruments require
painstaking efforts to design and de-
ploy. To illustrate a simplified exam-
ple, willingness-to-pay responses for
a specified ecological improvement
would be collected from a repre-
sentative sample of respondents,
perhaps posed via a hypothetical tax
increase. Given an adequate sample
and design, quantitative mean and
standard deviation valuation results
for the target population can be
SOCIETY
of ecological change possible.
Quantitative value statistics are all
the more important when associat-
ed with clearly understood ecologi-
cal changes. Ensured relevancy is
the first argument for paying atten-
tion to step 1.
Given the expense of original
research, in both time and money,
step 1 is also important for gen-
eralizing original valuations re-
sults to apply in other situations.
Economists call this practice benefit
transfer. Benefit transfer is common
in RIAs and other valuation analy-
ses due to the barriers of conduct-
ing new, tailored studies. There is a
compelling need to conduct benefit
transfer, but hurdles are formidable.
Ecosystem Goods and Services are the full suite of
ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES AND PHENOMENA THAT COLLECTIVELY
SUSTAIN HUMAN LIFE WHETHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY.
obtained (e.g. Weber and Stewart,
2008). High-quality case studies
are typically multi-year efforts.
Non-market valuation survey tech-
niques have been in use for decades,
perhaps most famously in comput-
ing public damages associated with
the 1989 ExxonValdez oil spill in
Prince William Sound, Alaska (Car-
son et al., 1992).
The importance of step 1 is
sometimes swept aside in the march
towards 2 and 3, flawing the study.
Clearly we want the efforts in 2
and 3 to be worthwhile, directed
towards the most meaningful
zauges
We know that numerous factors
affect values, including sociode-
mographics, relative scarcity, and
methodological differences, how-
ever we can't always predict the
sign of the influence, and we know
less about the degree. Perhaps the
most important barrier for benefit
transfer is the surprising diversity in
the way similar ecological changes
are defined. Water quality is a case
in point, having definitions from
"swimmable" (Carson and Mitchell,
1993), to supporting more than a
small number of plants, fish, and
other aquatic life (Viscusi et al.,
science perspectives on ecological valuation (e.g. US EPA Science Advisory Board, 2009). We also note that
across many of those perspectives.
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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
2008).This diversity makes it dif-
ficult to gather insight across case
studies. If units were more consis-
tent, meta-analysis, a primary direc-
tion of benefit transfer research,
could be more effectively applied
(Brouwer and Spaninks, 1999, Loo-
mis and Rosenberger, 2006, John-
ston and Rosenberger, 2010).
A third reason for step 1 is that
identifying relevant non-market
ecological units can form the basis
for ecological impacts analysis even
absent monetization. For example,
the abundance of fish in different
stream reaches with and without a
regulation is a representation of eco-
logical benefits purely in biophysical
terms. Note that ecological units
must still be relevant - a map of
changes in something like dissolved
oxygen levels may not convey the
benefits as usefully. Efforts in step 2
should be turned to best advantage.
Another important application of
ecological units without monetized
benefits is cost-effectiveness analy-
sis, for example, investigating the
cheapest way to achieve target fish
abundance levels.
The fourth reason for step 1 is
to provide a basis for distributional
analysis - who wins and who loses.
Distributional analysis is comple-
mentary to cost-benefit analysis;
both are routinely included in RIAs.
Distributional analysis includes
examining environmental justice,
such as impacts on low-income and
minority populations, see Executive
Order 12898. For both aggregate
analyses and distributional analyses,
ecological units are the basic ingre-
dient for quantitatively weighing
ecological decisions.
Reviewing non-market valuation
case studies is a helpful first step in
establishing non-market ecologi-
cal units. However the case study
literature is inconsistent (Boyd and
Krupnick, 2009).To addre ss this,
scientists at the National Health and
Environmental Effects Research
Laboratory, Western Ecology Divi-
sion, have been working towards
identifying ecological units useful
for monitoring, mapping and mod-
eling (Ringold et al., 2009 & 2011).
We are influenced especially by the
cut-and-dry demands of environ-
mental monitoring design, a histori-
cal focus of our Division. The new
challenge is to incorporate human
preferences. We want the moni-
toring wish-list to include things
the public clearly cares about and
understands.
The concept of Final Ecosystem
Goods and Services (FEGS) has
been an influential central concept
for our current research. The con-
cept includes "Final" to distinguish
it from the much more general
term "ecosystem services". Eco-
system services can be thought of
as ecological phenomena of direct
or indirect relevance to people, a
category so broad it loses meaning
for monitoring or decision-making
purposes. FEGS are those ecologi-
cal features of direct importance to
people's well-being.This is a crucial
distinction since everything, every-
where, cannot be tracked. The con-
ceptual foundation and definition
for FEGS can be found in Boyd and
Banzhaf (2007), adapted by Ringold
et al.(2009): "biophysical features,
quantities and qualities requiring lit-
tle further translation to make clear
their relevance to beneficiaries".
The FEGS definition is based in
economic theory and is designed to
support valuation.The more rel-
evant the ecological unit, the better
positioned a survey respondent will
be to form a judgment and associ-
ate a willingness-to-pay with a given
marginal change. A broad class of
cognition problems is introduced
in valuation if respondents don't
clearly understand the specific
Final Ecosystem Goods and Services are the subset
OF ALL ECOSYSTEM GOODS AND SERVICES THAT
ARE OF DIRECT RELEVANCE TO HUMAN WELL-
BEING. They can be defined as the
BIOPHYSICAL FEATURES, QUANTITIES
AND QUALITIES REQUIRING LITTLE FURTHER
TRANSLATION TO MAKE CLEAR THEIR RELEVANCE
TO BENEFICIARIES (RlNGOLD ET AL., 2OO9).
EHS Bulletin
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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
Figure 1: Final Ecosystem Goods and Services are those relevant to the public by definition, selected for their
importance from countless possibilities
marginal change at issue. For ex-
ample, consider a stated preference
survey asking people whether they
would be willing to contribute to
a river restoration program. If the
background information doesn't
quantify what the ecological impacts
would be, respondents will infer
them, imagining any number of
changes they may (or may not) wish
to see.This can introduce inaccura-
cies in valuation results (Boyd and
Krupnick, 2009).This is related to
content validity concerns within
the stated preference literature (e.g.
Brown, 2003).
So, who decides what these
"relevant" final ecological units actu-
ally are? Ideally, people do. People
are by definition the beneficiaries of
ecosystem services, and are the best
judge of the ecological features they
care about.This demands rigorous
techniques to gather public feed-
back. Qualitative research, estab-
lished in social science disciplines
such as Marketing, Sociology, and
Anthropology, has well-developed
protocols for collecting and analyz-
ing verbal data.These techniques are
particularly effective when in-depth
discussion is necessary, fitting the
complexity environmental topics
can have. An analogue to the ecolog-
ical units problem exists in market-
ing. Focus groups, structured ses-
sions with small groups of people,
are routinely used to help organiza-
tions understand features of goods
and services consumers prefer. The
same techniques can help environ-
mental scientists understand high-
relevance features of ecosystems
for the general public, conceptually
shown in Figure 1. If the goal is to
manage the environment for the
public good, public input is prefera-
ble to alternative means of prioritiz-
ing ecosystem services study, which
may include criteria such as simply
utilizing information already avail-
able, or following specific interests
of individual scientists.
We harness qualitative research
to help define ecological units. Our
primary "market segment" is the
general public - the largest seg-
ment - and also those for whom
important ecological units are least
predictable.This pilot research is
proceeding with 3 goals:
1.	Adapt and apply qualitative
methodologies specifically
for identifying ecological
units
2.	Identify ecological units for
rivers and streams, for two
separate case studies, one in
the Southwest, and one in
the Pacific Northwest
3. Explore case study results
for similarities and differ-
ences in FEGS for rivers and
streams, and the potential
role of geographic and socio-
demographic factors
Through the first goal we in-
tend to apply the existing wisdom
of qualitative methods to the eco-
system services field, and adapt it
to the problems of environmental
management. Human subjects
research in this arena is often mis-
understood, with focus groups
conflated with larger sample stud-
ies, both referred to as 'surveys',
with lost appreciation of the relative
advantages of each. Also typical in
real-world policy development is
public input collected in open hear-
ings which differ from qualitative
techniques described below in many
potentially important respects. A
primary concern is that while open
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ENVIRONMENT
hearings are valuable sources of
feedback, numerous segments of
society may not have the time or
ability to attend, or may self-censor
if competing interests will also be
present. Consequently, results from
these meetings may be more re-
flective of special interests, rather
than interests of the broader public.
Qualitative research can be designed
to reach out beyond the 'usual sus-
pects' . The first goal listed above is
also meant to test PEGS as a con-
cept. Will members of the public be
able to articulate measurable eco-
system services important to them?
What moderation strategies work
and which don't? Through back and
forth discussion, will ecological
units of direct importance, FEGS,
be successfully isolated from those
of indirect importance? These will
be interesting questions to empiri-
cally test.
The second goal has the more
direct, practical aim of offering
insights for two place-based eco-
system services studies involving
rivers and streams. Both studies are
in the western U.S., the Santa Cruz
watershed in Southern Arizona,
and the Willamette watershed in
Western Oregon. A cross-cutting
issue is identifying ecosystem ser-
vice metrics of rivers. These original
qualitative studies offer perspective
on choosing metrics for biophysi-
cal models, the lynch pins of the
efforts. Metrics derived from natu-
ral science toolboxes may or may
not be highly compatible with the
interests of the local public. In some
cases metrics may simply need ad-
justment to become clearly mean-
ingful to people, in other cases the
recommendation may be for deeper
retooling of natural science model-
ing.
The third goal is to understand
the opportunities and limitations of
scaling up. For Regulatory Impact
Analyses, a persistent issue is the
lack of valuation information at a
national scale (e.g. Weber, 2010).
This is partially owing to the diver-
sity of ecological units for some-
thing like water quality (Lovell et
al., 2004).To facilitate making the
environment Count, the starting
point is defining a consistent set of
units that are clearly meaningful to
people without expert interpreta-
tion. If units are relatively consis-
tent across case studies, valuation
tools such as meta-analysis become
more promising. The third goal is
also intended to address distribu-
tional considerations. Results from
m1mm.
HHr
Wetlands are an example of an ecosystem service that can be used to assimilate wastes.
EHS Bulletin
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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
focus groups and interviews can be
compared to discover if different
sociodemographic groups express
interest in different types of eco-
logical units.
We have deployed two large
qualitative research studies for goals
1,2, and 3. Both studies involve
in-depth interactions from approxi-
mately 100 human subjects each,
with a mixture of interviews and
focus groups. Interview and focus
group methods are similar and com-
plementary but not interchangeable.
Controversial topics are more likely
to come up in interviews (Kaplow-
itz and Hoehn, 2001), whereas focus
groups allow a more rapid coverage
of topics across numerous people,
and also allows the researcher to
explore where individuals agree and
disagree (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011).
We have also found one-on-one
interviews to be an effective way to
gather input from established stake-
holders, without the danger of them
dominating a focus group.
Recruits from the general pub-
lic are given financial incentives for
their time and trouble, and told as
little as possible about the study
during the recruiting process. Both
of these measures are intended to
limit self-selection, since the intent
is to hear from a broad cross-section
of persons, not just those with
strong opinions on the topic. Inter-
viewees are selected to represent a
diversity of stakeholder views. Like-
wise, focus groups are planned to
explore differences across segments
of the populations. For example,
in each study region, recruits that
express an interest in recreation
are grouped together, and recruits
of similar sociodemographics are
grouped together. Focus groups
are designed to contain persons of
similar backgrounds so that they feel
comfortable with each other, but
not previously well-known to one
another since this can lead to inhi-
bitions (Morgan, 1998). For these
studies, representing low-income
and minority populations has been a
focus of recruitment in order to ad-
dress environmental justice consid-
erations in defining ecological units.
Some sessions are held in Spanish.
For analysis, verbal data are
tape recorded and transcribed, as
verbatim quotations are the cur-
rency of qualitative findings. Pas-
sages are analyzed through an itera-
tive process of coding in search of
emergent themes. The number of
interview and focus group sessions
is designed to achieve a saturation
of input (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).
We follow a staged research design
to allow evolution of the research
as influenced by initial findings. In
keeping with protocols of human
subjects research, it is made clear
that participation is voluntary, and
that results will not be attributed to
specific individuals.
In summary, both qualitative and
quantitative techniques are crucial
in researching human impacts from
ecological changes. This matches
the importance of'mixed methods'
approaches in other disciplines.
Qualitative research helps explore
the relevancy and transferability of
the foundational ecological units.
Quantitative assessment of eco-
logical changes is then in a stronger
position to assess the importance
of ecological changes. We hope
that our research will help to make
data natural scientists collect more
usable and useful to society, and
therefore lead to improved environ-
mental decisions.
References
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Recommended Additional Reading
Creswell, J. W, Vicki L. Piano Clark, V L.
(2007). Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods
Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Definition of mixed methods research:
Creswell, J.W (2003). Research design:
Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods ap-
proaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Greene, J. C., Caracelli, V J., & Graham,
W F. (1989). Toward a conceptual framework for
mixed-method evaluation designs. Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 11(3), 255—274.
Rocco,T.S., Bliss, L.A., Gallagher, S., et
al. (2003). Taking the next step: Mixed methods
research in organizational systems. Information
Technology, Learning, and Performance Journal
21(1): Spring.
For a historical analjsis of mixed methods research:
Tashakkori, A., &Teddlie, C. (1998). Mixed
methodology: Combining qualitative and quantita-
tive approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA; Sage.
Piano Clark, V. L. (2010). The Adoption and
Practice of Mixed Methods: U.S. Trends in Feder-
ally Funded Health-Related Research. Qualitative
Inquiry 16 (6): 428-440.
Steps in the process of conducting a mixed methods
study:
Creswell, J.W (1999). Mixed-method re-
search: Introduction and application. In G. Cizek
(Ed.), Handbook of educational policy. San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.
Creswell, J.W, Goodchild, L., & Turner, P.
(1996). Integrated qualitative and quantitative
research: Epistemology, history, and designs. In
J. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of
theory and research (Vol. 11, pp. 90—136). New
York: Agathon Press.
Bazeley, P. (2004) Issues in Issues in Mix-
ing Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to
Research, http: //www.researchsupport.com.au/
MMIssues.pdf. Published in: R. Buber, J. Gadner,
& L. Richards (eds) (2004). Applying qualitative
methods to marketing management research. UK:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp 141-156.
SOCIETY
EHS Bulletin
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ENVIRONMENT	HEALTH	SOCIETY
Featured Science Article:
Factors Influencing Food Buying Practices
in Residents of a Low-Income Food ^1%
Desert and a Low-Income Food Oasis
Abstract
Studies suggest that proximity
to a supermarket influences access
to healthy foods. However, little is
known about factors that influence
food buying practices within areas
with limited supermarket access.
This study identified these factors
and explored how they are related
and influence healthy eating. Twen-
ty-five men and women engaged
in the concept mapping process, a
mixed methods approach allowing
participants to identify, sort, and
rate ideas. Participants generated
121 unique (non-duplicate) state-
ments of factors that influence food
buying practices and sorted them
into 12 clusters that represented
their perceptions. Average cluster
ratings for residents with poor su-
permarket access were higher than
residents with supermarket access.
Awareness of these factors is im-
portant for increasing access to and
consumption of healthy foods.
Kenee E.Walker, Craig S. Fryer, James Butler, Christopher
K. Keane, Andrea Kriska and Jessica G. Burke. (2011).
Factors influencing jood buying practices in residents of
a low-income food desert and a low-income food oasis.
Journal of Mixed Methods Research. 5(3):247-267.
Conferences &
Opportunities
1.	National Health Impact Assessment
Meeting
April 3-4, 2012
Washington, D. C.
http: / / wivw.healthimpactpmject.
org / news / events / inaugural-national-
he alth-i mpa ct- assessm ent-meeting
2.	Campus-Community Partnershipsfor
Health
April 18-21, 2012
Houston, Texas
http: / /dents. Washington. edu /ccph /
confl 2-overview, html
3.	Society of Interdisciplinary Business
Research. SIBK-Thammasat 2012 Con-
ference on Interdisciplinary Business <§_
Economic Research
June 7-9, 2012
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadlinefor full paper/abstract sub-
mission : March 22, 2012
http: / /sihresearch.org /sibr-conference-
call-for-paper.html http: / /sibresearch.
org / sibr-conference-call-jor-paper.html
4.	8th Mixed Methods International
Conference
June 18-21,2012
University of Leeds
http: / /www.healthcare.conferences.
leeds. ac. uk / conferences/	
5. European Association for Research and
Learning Institute. SIG 17 "Qualitative
and quantitative approaches to learn-
ing and instruction"
Theme: Mixed methods for analyzing
education al interactions
September 6-7, 2012
Saxon University of Applied Sciences,
Deventer, The Netherelands
http: / /www.earli.org/conferences/
Sig Conferences in 2012
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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
Environment, Health and Society Program Updates
EPA Workshop on Social Stressors and Environmental Hazards. May, 14 — May 15, 2012 in Washington, DC.
(Please check	for updates and announcements)
The purpose of the 1 1/i day workshop on Stress and Environmental Hazards is to enhance awareness and stimulate
discussion about the emerging field of environmental health research on how multiple social stressors can modify the
relationship between exposure to pollution and the resultant risk of adverse health effects and to stimulate interest in
research to advance the field.
Specific objectives of this meeting are to:
1.	Share knowledge on biological pathways through which psychosocial stress and social context may adversely influence
health;
2.	Highlight and discuss emerging toxicological and epidemiological data on the interactions between social context,
psychosocial stress and exposures to environmental hazards, and
3.	Stimulate discussion on research and methods to advance the practical application of this type of information in health
assessments at EPA.
Confirmed presentations for the workshop are currently organized around the following themes:
Theme I: Science of the Impacts of Stress on Health
Theme II: Interactions between Chronic Stress, Social Context, Health and Environmental Hazards
Theme III: Measuring Chronic Stress and Social Context in Research
Children's Environmental Health Webinar Series (ongoing)
The webinar series kicked off in February of 2012, and will be held the second Wednesday of each month,
1:00 — 2:30 p.m. EST. The purpose of the webinars is to highlight and discuss the research findings from the various EPA/
NIEHS Children's Centers and to give the Centers an opportunity to share their work with a wider audience. For more
information and to register for future webinars, please visit epa.gov/ncer/events/index.html#marcehc-webinar
The 8th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo (P3)
The 8th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo will take place on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on April 21 -
23, 2011. The Expo brings together students, scientists, engineers, and business leaders whose innovative technologies
are designed to advance economic growth while reducing environmental impact. A highlight of the Expo will be the
technologies developed by P 3 student teams to address alternative energy, purification and distribution of drinking water,
reducing pesticide run-off, green buildings, and more. The Expo also provides a forum for government, nonprofits, and the
business community to demonstrate their diverse approaches to sustainability epa.gov/ncer/events/#apr2112
Coolcstoves RFA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD), National Center for
Environmental Research (NCER), in cooperation with the Air, Climate, and Energy research program announces an
extramural funding competition supporting research on the impacts on air quality and climate from residential cooking,
heating, or lighting, with a focus on the developing world and on Indian tribes and Alaska Native groups. This research
will quantify the extent to which interventions for cleaner cooking, heating, or lighting can impact air quality and climate,
which in turn affect human health and welfare. More information about ongoing EPA efforts regarding cookstoves can be
found at Science Matters newsletter, epa.gov/research/sciencematters/august2010/cook-stoves.htm
EHS Bulletin
10

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SOCIETY
A Conversation with
Scientific research can be a
messy, complex venture, especially
outside a controlled laboratory. It
can be difficult to account for all
the factors present in the real world
even when it comes to straightfor-
ward quantitative measurements.
In researching the interactions
between people and the environ-
ment, qualitative matters can come
into play. These can include politi-
cal policies, local social factors and
other aspects of life, but for a com-
plete picture they must be taken
into account . Combining the two
methods of quantitative and quali-
tative research is difficult but can
also be very important in striving
for meaningful understanding of an
environmental situation and consid-
ering future plans.
When it comes to important
environmental concerns, water use
and efficiency in agriculture is near
the top of the list. STAR fellow
Morgan Levy is well aware of this,
and her research aims to provide
critical and real-time estimates of
water demands in the San Joaquin
River Delta of California. The San
Joaquin River Delta is characterized
by intense agriculture, is estimated
to be the most productive agricul-
tural region in the United States
— providing tomatoes, strawber-
ries, garlic, carrots, corn and other
produce1. Those measurements
include far more than identifying
'University of California Cooperative Extension Vegetable Research and Information Center. (2012). "San
vric. ucdavis. edu/ virtual_tour/ sanj oq. htm
the amount of water taken by iarm-
ers for irrigation. In order to really
grasp how much and in what ways
agricultural water is being used,
she plans to combine information
on how much actual water has been
drawn from the river every year
with more qualitative data such as
geographical and political factors
and even individual decisions by
farmers over the years. "I'm inter-
ested in how farmers manage water
from the ground up," Levy said.
A graduate student at UC Berke-
ley, Levy has been involved in water
management research for several
years, both in California and the
Netherlands. Her current work
comes from that previous research
Joaquin Valley AgricultureAvailable from: http://
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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
but on a larger, more ambitious
scale. "Qualitative information
makes measuring harder," she said,
but added that it's also necessary in
order to create a useful picture of
water use. Unfortunately, even ac-
curate quantitative measurements of
water use are difficult to determine.
Levy explained that in some places,
including the Netherlands, there is
regular measurement of water in
the canals as opposed to the area she
is studying now. "There's no record
of water efficiency in California,"
she said. Currently, Levy is working
to generate those numbers herself
using historical records.
Along with that data, Levy plans
to add information gathered by her
own surveys and interviews of peo-
ple involved in water management
in the region, and then breaking that
information down into numbers and
quantifying it. "It's important to see
how water use is impacted by social
data. It gives context," she said.
Both types of data together make a
far stronger argument than just one
or the other, Levy said. Combined,
they back each other up.
Levy said she sees the work at
San Joaquin as a case study that
could someday be used to improve
other water managements sys-
tems all over the world, an issue
of every-growing importance. "It's
vital for sustainable agriculture,"
she said. Using all of her collected
data in tandem, Levy plans to cre-
ate a process model that could be
used in researching water resource
usage and finding ways to improve
efficiency in a way that hasn't been
done before. "It will be a quantita-
tive analysis based on a qualitative
understanding," she said.
EHS Bulletin

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ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
SOCIETY
Resources at your Fingertips
Journal of Mixed Methods Re-
search ,Jrttpi//mmr;^a5epubicom/.
Journal of Qualitative Inquiry,
http: / / qix. sapcpub. com /
National Institutes of Health. Best
Practices for Mixed Methods Research in
the Health Sciences
http: //obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific areas/
methodology/mixed methods research/
index.aspx. Report also available, http://
obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific areas/meth-
odology/mixed methods research/pdf/
Best Practices for Mixed Methods Re-
search.pdf
National Institutes of Health,
Upcoming events, funding, and com-
munication . http://obssr.od.nih.gov/
news and events/index.aspx
The International Institute for
Qualitative Inquiry is a multidis-
ciplinary institute at the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champai^n. Website has
information on meetings, lectures, and
research training programs. See http: / /
www.iiqi.org/
US Agency for International De-
velopment. Performance Monitoring
& EvaluationTips: Conducting Mixed-
Method Evaluations, http://www.usaid.
gov/policy/evalweb/documents/TIPS-
ConductingMixedMethodEvaluations. pdf
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, De-
partment of Educational Psychol-
ogy, Office of Qualitative and Mixed
Methods Research, http://cehs.ml.
edu/edpsvch/research/oqmmr/ index,
shtml
Courses and Training
University of South Alabama,
http: / / www.southalabama.edu/coe/
b set / j ohnson/lect nres / lec 14. htm
Commonwealth of Learning,
http: / / www.col.org/SiteCollectionDoc-
uments/A5. pdf
Academy Health, An Introduction
to Mixed Methods, http: / /www, acad-
emyhealth.org/Training/ResoiirceDetail.
cfmPitemnumber=7916
Academy Health, Using Mixed
Methods Appropriately and Rig-
orously, http: //academyhealth.
org/Training/ResourceDetail.
cfm Pitemnumb er=8046
—	The EHS Bulletin staff includes Kenny McFarlane, Cynthia McOliver, Myles Morse, Devon Payne-Sturges, Eric Schwartz, Kelly
Widener, andTinaYuen. MattWeber and Paul Ringold wrote thejeatured methods article. Special thanks to Morgan Levy. Editorial
United States	Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those ofNCER, the Office of Research and Development and EPA. To contact the
Environmental Protection	EHS Bulletin staff: Devon Pavne-Stxages at (703) 347-805$ oi pajne-sturges.devon@epQ.gov,
	Agency											 	
EHS Bulletin	13

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