Communities Learn to Harness the Power of Data for Environmental Action
Yvonne Boone and her neighbors in South Fulton, Georgia, have long been concerned about industrial pollution in their city and how it might affect their health. As co-founder and current CEO of the SEJA, an organization focused on environmental issues in South Fulton, Boone feels a responsibility to be an informed and engaged citizen and equip herself with the knowledge to advocate for her community.
The HERCULES Exposome Research Center’s Community Data Workshop helped empower her to find and use data to do that.
“I, along with my daughter, participated in the Community Data Workshop to learn the resources, tools, and skills available to conduct our own research on environmental issues within our community,” says Boone. “As community leaders, we see it as important to act as global citizens to better articulate and demonstrate how any engaged citizen can participate in the process of empowerment through knowledge.”
Rollins Responds to Community Data Needs
Engaging with community members doing environmental health work on the ground is one of the key pillars of HERCULES Exposome Research Center, based at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health. In fact, their community grant program is what first allowed Boone and other South Fulton residents to form SEJA in 2023. The program provides funding and technical support for groups to address environmental health issues in their communities.
“Research can't solve everything, and communities have the expertise and knowledge to take action,” says Erin Lebow-Skelley, manager of the HERCULES Community Engagement Core. “But what we noticed as a common thread through almost all the grantees was a need for data.”
Many of the organizations that worked with HERCULES through their grant program, like SEJA, wanted to better understand the conditions in their communities, but they lacked the tools to do so.
The Community Data Workshop was born to meet those needs after a meeting with the HERCULES Stakeholder Advisory Board.
“A lot of the board members are involved in environmental efforts around Atlanta, so we asked them how they interacted with data and what data they needed to do their job well,” says Lance Waller, PhD, co-director of the HERCULES Environmental Health Data Science Core. “There was a lot of interest from the board, and they wanted data exercises to try out. So, we thought, why not put together a virtual course to talk about different types of data and how to use them?”
Participants in the 2026 workshop present their work with data at the end of the program.
Learning Goes Both Ways
HERCULES held the workshop for the first time in spring 2024. Community organizations sent two or three representatives each, and over six sessions they learned how to explore publicly available datasets to identify environmental health concerns, understand how to use maps and other data tools, and use that data to make a change in their communities.
Each group was also paired with a Rollins student as a teaching assistant (TA). The TAs supported organizations during classes, helped with assignments, and met with their groups outside of class hours. According to Waller and Lebow-Skelley, these students were vital to the workshop’s success.
Alina Merceron was a student TA for the 2024 workshop. She is now a HERCULES staff member and ran the second iteration of the workshop in 2026. As a TA, she worked with the Center for Black Women’s Wellness to better understand the demographics of the community around their clinic and learn about forever chemicals in personal care products.
“Oftentimes TAs were acting as a liaison to the breadth of the data that is out there, distilling it down and making it more digestible for the community groups,” says Merceron. “Ultimately, I think the buy-in of having one person that groups can reach out to and ask for help is a cornerstone of this program.”
And the student TAs learned just as much from the workshop as participants. They were given independence and ownership in working with their groups and gained real-world experience managing projects, applying classroom knowledge to real community concerns, and navigating challenges.
“The TAs got exposed to real issues that are not a clean classroom example,” says Waller. “These are real people who are concerned about an issue in their neighborhood, and they had to think about what information could really help them. It grounds their public health training and gives them appreciation for the people involved behind the numbers.”
Turning Data into Action
At the end of the course, participants give presentations on how they plan to use data in their work, or, in some cases, how they are already applying the lessons they learned.
Since participating in the workshop in both 2024 and 2026, SEJA has used tools like census and environmental mapping data in their work. They also rely heavily on the four-page data science resource guide given to each participant, which outlines some key environmental health data sources. But the value of the workshop, for Boone, goes beyond just the data.
“For my organization, the most valuable thing I have learned is that the Community Data Workshop was not just a six-session program, but an extension of support and encouragement to grassroots organizations,” she says. “The relationship between participants and training continues after the workshop.”
The HERCULES team hopes that, above all, workshop participants leave with greater confidence to ask questions, find evidence, and engage decision-makers.
“The idea is that you don't have to have a PhD before you’re allowed to look at data, and you don’t need an expert's blessing,” says Waller.
The team plans to continue offering the workshop every two years, making improvements as they go to best serve communities around Atlanta.
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