Mitigating compounding hazard impacts on public health through a community co-created toolkit on food-energy-water (FEW) insecurity

Purpose Climatic- and non-climatic hazards pose increasingly complex risks within and across food, energy and water (FEW) systems. These risks create significant public health challenges, given the centrality of FEW systems in everyday life. One evolving risk context includes the prevalence of “compounding” hazards, such as concurrent hurricanes, heatwaves and droughts. Puerto Rico already experiences concurrent hazards that warrant greater preparedness to guard against health risks. Design/methodology/approach To respond to this need and to build on previous community-based participatory research, we partnered with community leaders in the remote community of Corcovada, Puerto Rico, to co-develop, pilot and validate a problem-focused and solutions-oriented survey toolkit for community use. This toolkit is co-designed to help community leaders and public health officials assess FEW insecurities at the household level, capturing experiences and possible health risks before, during and after hazards or compounding hazards. Findings We discuss the toolkit's public health implications and its potential to advance environmental justice and health. Community leaders can leverage local expertise and use this toolkit, or ones developed with a similar methodology, to gather and disseminate hazard information. In doing so, this exercise supports environmental justice principles of informed consent to research and education on social and environmental issues. Originality/value With this tool, community leaders and public health officials can mitigate negative public health impacts by identifying at-risk populations, monitoring community health outcomes and using it as a means to develop mitigation, preparedness and response plans.