oil and communit y health 503
5. We organized a meeting of people from all the communities in our area.
We explained why we wanted to do this study and asked if the
communities were prepared to help. At the end of the meeting, everyone
voted to do it. We organized a committee including health promoters,
people from different communities, and people with knowledge of how
chemicals affect people and the environment, to carry out the study and
analyze the results.
6. We made a work plan.
We planned to take 5 months to do the study. We would go to a different
community every 15 days and stay for 3 or 4 days in each place. We would
survey the community and collect samples of blood, urine, and feces for
testing. When we had the test results from a lab in the city, we would
return to the community to share the results. This was very important to
allow us to make decisions together. We also planned to have a meeting
every 2 months, where the coordinating committee and community
representatives could talk about how the study was going.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012