Empowering Flint Youth Through Digital Storytelling: A Case Study
The project is a collaboration among teachers at UM-Flint, UM-Dearborn, the Ann Arbor campus and the Genesee Early College at the Genesee Intermediate School District. The project will focus on teaching journalism and digital storytelling techniques to Flint students as part of a summer class on environmental issues. Using written words, audio recordings and visual images, the teachers will assist the students in producing digital stories describing their own and others’ experiences in Flint during the past months.
Towards Long-Term Water Safety in Flint
This proposal comes from a team of water-quality experts from UM-Flint, the Ann Arbor campus and Wayne State University. The team will assess the performance of the existing system, develop a comprehensive water safety plan and develop and implement a strategy for long-term engagement about water quality.
The Flint Water Crisis and the Youth of Flint: What about our future?
The proposal is a joint effort by a professor in SPH and the Flint Odyssey House-Health Awareness Center. The researchers will conduct community forums with Flint youth to determine their perspectives regarding the water crisis, including implications for their future and what they believe should be done to secure their future moving forward. The researchers hope to submit a larger proposal to the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or relevant foundations in order to implement feasible ideas identified by the youth.
Effects of the Flint Water Crisis on Vulnerable Adults
A team of gerontology researchers will study the health effects of lead exposure on other vulnerable populations, such as frail older persons or younger persons with disabilities.
The project will use already available, longitudinal, standardized assessment data to examine the epidemiological effects of lead exposure on persons receiving home care services in the Flint area. The Valley Area Agency on Aging from Flint is working with the researchers.
Planning for the Development of a Longitudinal Study of the Impact of the Water Crisis on the Flint Community
A six-person team of epidemiology experts from UM-Flint and the Ann Arbor campus will take an intergenerational and life-course approach in assessing exposure of all those affected, including children, adolescents, younger and older adults. The group is interested in assessing the medical, psycho-social, developmental, economic impact on those affected across the life span. This will be a longitudinal cohort study following the exposed population over an indefinite period of time, with future funding mechanisms already in the works.
Flint Water Situation: Knowledge and Perceived Risks in Two University Samples
Two health psychology faculty members at UM-Flint and UM-Dearborn will assess the perceived risk of a sample of university students and employees in light of their comprehension of the nature of the risk. Additionally, the study will describe the sources of information the sample subjects find most credible. The study will present a description of a sample’s understanding of the water situation within Flint, as well as the attitudes toward perceived risks.
The Effects of the Flint Water Crisis on Population Dynamics: Will Residents Flee Flint?
UM-Flint professors in the Department of Earth and Resource Science will investigate the effects of the Flint water crisis on population dynamics in the city of Flint. The city’s 2013 master plan anticipated that 20,000 people would leave the city by the end of the decade. However, because the master plan was written prior to the water crisis, the researchers believe population loss will accelerate. The researchers will also try to determine whether the people who are considering leaving vary geographically, demographically, or socioeconomically from other city residents.
