Regional and Local Perspectives related to Cumulative Impacts

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Background Chemical and non-chemical stressors are not evenly distributed in an environment, nor do they operate in isolation. Similarly, people are not exposed to one stressor at a time, but rather are subject to multiple types of stressors from the natural, built, and social environments simultaneously. Cumulative impacts research that focuses on the totality of exposures (both beneficial and adverse) from such stressors on human health and well-being is needed in order to address overlapping environmental, social, and economic impacts. Cumulative impact assessment (CI assessment) is a tool that can be used to assess such cumulative exposures.  This webinar series highlights efforts to advance this practice in the absence of standardized guidance. 

About the Webinar Series This webinar series is being co-organized by HEI’s Community Health and Environmental Research Initiatives program and Energy research program as part of a special project aimed at providing a roadmap that can inform CI assessment using example contexts from oil and gas communities in the United States. This series of webinars inform the conceptualization of the project and  aims to bring together voices from academia, government, industry, and communities across the field of impact assessment. 

Overview of the Webinar This webinar highlighted projects that exemplify elements of cumulative impact assessment that have been implemented across different geographic scales with various specific objectives. The projects help to illustrate what has been learned by recent efforts to understand cumulative impacts, and highlight the opportunities and challenges in formulating and conducting these types of analyses. 
The speakers addressed the following questions:
1. In what context was your assessment of cumulative impacts or risks conducted and to support what types of decisions?
2. How did you go about conceptualizing or designing your project? What types of chemical or non-chemical health stressors did you consider? Were social and economic stressors considered?
3. What data sources or methods did you identify for your project? Were they useful for assessing impacts either qualitatively or quantitatively? 
4. How has community engagement factored into these assessments? What lessons can be learned from those efforts?
5. How can the findings and lessons from these projects be used to inform policy or address the stressors identified in the assessment?
6. What contextual factors do we need to understand in order to construct a meaningful and impactful cumulative impact assessment design that best protects public health?

Thank you to all who attended! The webinar recording and slides are now available.