Environmental justice and local knowledge in the 'One Health and Citizen Science' Project

The "One Health and Citizen Science" (OHCS) project aims to provide an integrated intervention model useful for characterising the state of environmental quality, assessing population exposure to pollutants, investigating the association between environmental risk factors and health outcomes, and measuring the impacts associated with contamination and remediation scenarios. In pursuing this objective, the activation of participatory pathways and the use of risk communication strategies are envisaged. Within the OHCS project, training and discussion meetings were planned on a number of issues deemed central. The first of these meetings focused on the theme of environmental justice. By embracing this theme, researchers explicitly acknowledged several essential elements: the value of a transdisciplinary approach in enriching our understanding, the non-neutrality of knowledge, and the prioritization of public health. Environmental justice, through this perspective, can represent the trait d'union of different disciplines and, in this circumstance, it was a fertile ground for exchanges between epidemiology, history, and social sciences allowing the historical and narrative reconstruction of the events affecting a place and its community as a result of personal and collective reflections. This contribution, therefore, explores the perspectives that can be developed around the topic of environmental justice. These perspectives are investigated by adopting a trans- disciplinary approach, which on the one hand integrates the contributions of these different disciplines, on the other includes knowledge of other natures, with a view to peer collaboration in the production of knowledge. The theoretical reflections are complemented by the description of the training workshop experience, presented as a practical example for the construction of a useful dialogue space for local communities and technicians.