Community engagement on health support services for chemically-exposed populations

New Zealand, like many other countries, has had to grapple in recent years with a legacy of chemical use and contamination that has led to both directly-exposed populations and some contaminated sites that still pose a potential hazard to the people who live and work near them.

Since 2007, Allen + Clarke has worked with chemically-exposed populations to identify exposures that have occurred and to consult on and design support services for those persons who may have been exposed.  This has included residents of Paritutu, New Plymouth – who were exposed during the 1960s to 1980s to dioxins as a result of the operation of an agrichemical plant in their area – and former sawmill workers across the country who handled pentachlorophenol, a timber preservative and anti-sap stain treatment chemical, during the 1950s to 1980s.

Our approach was to balance reviewing the evidence with listening to the views and life experiences of those who had been exposed, and to try and strike a balance between the two in developing responsive support services.

We ran a variety of engagement processes including public meetings, small focus groups, direct one-to-one consultations and written processes.  We established an 0800 phone service where people could ring to share their experiences – anonymously if they preferred.  Most importantly, we maintained these processes throughout the life of the projects we worked on so that people could contact us directly at any time they wanted – using the engagement mechanism they felt most comfortable with.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has accepted Allen + Clarke’s recommendations for the types of services that should be made available for the populations we have worked with.  Allen + Clarke has continued to work with the Ministry and the exposed groups to implement those services, including assisting with ongoing engagement as the services have been established (for example, through stakeholder liaison groups).  While we have not been able to recommend, nor the Ministry to fund, all the requests made by the exposed populations, we do believe that the communities we have been working with have had many of their concerns addressed and we are hopeful that ongoing dialogue will continue to shape and improve on those services over time.