Published in 2001, The Sustainable Washington Environmental Health Action Guide demonstrates what a community-based guidebook can be. The complete document is available as a PDF here; however, links and contact information within the guide have not been updated.

Many residents of the District of Columbia live and work in environments that are unhealthy due to pollution, poor community hygiene, and poorly maintained buildings and facilities. Residents of low income communities and communities of color, in particular, have not been made aware of the relationship of environmental degradation and poor health, or of the resources available to them to address such problems. Citizens need access to information to learn about environmental health as well as processes by which they can build and maintain healthy residences and neighborhoods.

The purpose of this guide is to fill that need, as an easy-to-use information resource that will help citizens of the District understand threats to their health from the environment, and the steps that they can take to mitigate and remove those threats. We hope this guide will serve to empower residents and facilitate collaborative and consensus-based problem-solving among the many stakeholders involved in community environmental health. This guide also provides information to residents about the relationships between their lifestyles and the environment, to help build greater awareness of the daily responsibility that we all share in protecting the nature that surrounds and supports us—whether it is the air we breathe, the water we drink or the earth we till.

Click here to download the the Guide.