Approaches for Disseminating Environmental Research Findings to Navajo Communities

We report the use of three different dissemination approaches for providing environmental research results back to Navajo communities from different research projects. The objectives of the dissemination are to provide the results to the community, have a dialogue about the results, and learn more about the environmental concerns of the community for potential future research projects. The first approach utilizes radio announcements and flyers provided to the community announcing dissemination meetings specific to the research projects. The second approach is more collaborative, working with a grassroots organization to organize report-back meetings, as well as one-on-one discussions of the research project. The third approach involves the development of a booklet for distribution to communities along with an oral presentation at the regularly scheduled monthly community meetings to discuss the information. Overall, the second and third approaches are more effective than the first approach in terms of dissemination to a larger number of community members, as well as increased dialogue between the researchers and the communities.