Small Communities, Big Challenges
Rural Environmental Public Health Needs Prize Competition
On this page:
- Overview
- Timeline
- Prizes
- Rules
- Judging
- How to Enter
- Submitting Your Entry
- Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Contact
Overview
Local governments are on the frontlines for working with rural communities on environmental public health issues. Rural communities across America have unique perspectives on pressing environmental and public health issues their community faces, particularly on issues that are not well understood, challenging to address, and need additional scientific understanding. This Competition seeks to identify innovative and inclusive approaches local governments have developed for working with citizens, community groups, and other interested parties in rural communities to identify and address environmental public health concerns facing their people. This Competition also seeks to better understand what barriers these communities have associated with these public health concerns.
To gain a better understanding of environmental and public health challenges facing rural communities, EPA and our partners are launching the “Small Communities, Big Challenges” Competition. The goal of this Competition is for local governments to identify innovative and effective ways to holistically engage rural communities around environmental health issues and to identify any associated barriers to better protecting human health. Through increased engagement, this Competition would ideally help local governments and communities better identify and understand rural community-based environmental public health issues, which may help in the protection of the community’s environmental public health. EPA and our partners will use the solutions from this Competition to learn of unique or innovative strategies for engaging with rural communities and of the environmental public health issues that rural communities are faced with. Local governments that participate in the Competition will demonstrate their innovative strategies for engaging rural communities and present collaboratively identified findings from these engagements through a brief engagement strategy report and a short video.
Partners
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA)
- Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
- National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
- National Environmental Health Association (NEHA)
Timeline
Launch Date: November 1, 2023
Submission Deadline: January 31, 2024; 11:59 PM EST
Informational Webinar: November 29, 2023; 2-3 PM EST.
Judging window: February 2024
Winner announcement: February/March 2024 (Date & Time TBD)
Prizes
Up to ten selected winners will each receive $25,000 (totaling $250,000). Five individual Challenge winners will be given a one-year National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) membership.
Rules
Eligibility Requirements
Solvers must be individuals or groups employed by local governments, including, but not limited to:
- City and county health departments
- Local environmental agencies
- Local departments of fish and wildlife
- Local utility providers
- Local waste management officials
- Local departments of housing
- Water and sewer district boards
- Tribal and territorial government leaders
- City/municipality governments
- Mayors
- Village and city managers
- Commissioners
- City planners
- City administrators
- County executives
Intellectual Property
- Winning submissions will be posted on EPA's website and announced in March 2024.
- Submissions and winners names may be used by EPA (e.g., on EPA social media accounts, webpages and at events) in connection with this Competition and the production, distribution, promotion, broadcast at public meetings/conferences, and online posting thereof.
- Solvers are responsible for complying with applicable copyright and intellectual property laws for any materials used in their submissions. “Fair use” rules may allow the use of copyrighted material in certain circumstances (e.g., see the fair use guidelines on YouTube). Participants should seek legal guidance if they have questions about using copyrighted materials.
- Solvers warrant and represent that they are the sole owner of the materials (ex. videos, images, communication campaign materials) submitted for this Competition and/or that they have the legal right to share the submitted work with EPA and grant EPA unlimited, irrevocable, world-wide and royalty-free rights to use the work for all uses and purposes described on this webpage.
- Solvers shall indemnify, defend and hold EPA and its agents harmless from and against any and all suits, claims, liabilities, demands, costs, expenses, or damages arising out of submitter's use of the works as provided herein or arising out of the breach of warranty or agreement made by submitter herein.
- Video entries may be used by EPA (e.g., on EPA social media accounts and webpages) in connection with this Competition and the production, distribution, promotion, broadcast at public meetings/conferences, and online posting thereof.
- Use of music within each video entry must follow EPA Music Licensing Guidance (pdf) .
Non-endorsement
EPA and EPA officials do not endorse any product, service, or enterprise that may appear in submission materials. Furthermore, by recognizing winning submissions, EPA is not endorsing any products, services, or enterprises that may appear in those submissions.
Terms and Conditions
- Only the winners of the Competition will receive an award.
- The prize award will be sent to the solver (individual, team, or organization) at the local government level.
- EPA does NOT commit to resolve or conduct research to address the environmental public health challenges identified through this Competition activity.
- EPA cannot stipulate how funds are used by winners and there is no follow-up activity necessary once prizes are awarded.
- EPA reserves the right to cancel, suspend, and/or modify the Challenge, or any part of it, for any reason, at EPA's sole discretion.
Judging
Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts with familiarity in housing and urban development, conducting community research, working with city and county health officials, working with state and tribal organizations, and providing fish and wildlife services. The judges will evaluate, score, and rank submissions based on the following criteria:
Pre-Screening Criteria
- Solver(s) must be from a local government.
- Solver(s) must have worked with a rural community and/or community-based organization to be considered.
Primary Criteria
- Demonstration of effective engagement and input from affected communities.
- Identification and characterization of environmental concerns for a given rural community.
- Identification/suggestion of associated gaps or barriers to address the issue.
Additional Criteria
- Creativity and innovation.
- Strategies that target at-risk communities.
Scoring
- Community Engagement (40%) – The degree to which local governments clearly engaged with the rural community members and/or community-based organizations and provided inclusive and equitable* opportunities to collaboratively identify environmental and public health issues the community faces that needs further scientific understanding.
- Local governments demonstrate engagement with community members and/or community-based organizations (CBO) (15%)
- Local governments provide inclusive and equitable* opportunities to the community/ CBOs (15%)
- Environmental and public health issues identified in a collaborative manner (ex. based on community surveys, townhall meetings, etc.) (10%)
- Creativity/Innovation (20%) – The degree to which the community engagement strategy and communication video shows an innovative approach to community engagement and collaboratively identify environmental public health issues the community faces.
- Community Engagement Strategy (15%) - The degree to which the community engagement strategy report fulfills all the expected requirements.
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- Description of Community (1%)
- Approach (4%)
- Environmental Health Issue (4%)
- Barriers (5%)
- Transferability (1%)
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- Communication Product (15%) – The degree to which the communication product fulfills all the expected requirements noted above.
- Impacts and Solutions (10%) – The degree to which the environmental and public health issue identified has broad impacts to specific populations (i.e., at-risk, disadvantaged communities, etc.) and solutions to address the issue could be transferred to other communities.
*Note: “Inclusive” and “equitable” refer to creating opportunities for as many people as possible to provide input. Examples of this could include: having meetings outside of work hours, having multiple meetings, having meetings in multiple languages, etc.
How to Enter
1. Cover page providing basic information about the submission, including:
- Title
- Organization (name, contact information, web link, 9-digit zip code)
- Short description of environmental issue
- Identify other partners (if any)
- If you choose to create a video as your communication product, please provide a link to the 3-minute online video.
2. Community Engagement Strategy Report
A detailed strategy report that demonstrates effective and innovative engagement with a rural community to collaboratively identify environmental public health issues the community faces that needs further scientific understanding. This written strategy report should meet the following format and content requirements. Use this SCBC Community Engagement Strategy Report Template (docx) to format your report.
Format Requirements
- Size 12 Calibri or Times New Roman font
- Single-spaced
- 3/4” margins on all sides
- No longer than 10 pages
- Final document in PDF format
Content Requirements
- Description of Community: Overview of the community the Solvers engaged with (including specific individuals), including any unique, historical, or defining characteristics of the location or population.
- Approach: Description of the innovative strategies or approaches Solvers used to engage and work with their community to collaboratively identify the environmental public health issue. Including identifying any groups that were specifically interacted with such as at-risk populations, advocacy groups, or other Community Based Organizations (CBO)s.
- Description of Community Environmental Public Health Issue: Details the environmental public health issue, including: who is affected by it; if the issue is new or a long-standing/historical issue; if the issue is specific to water, air, land, a combination, or other; and if the issue has relevance or greater impact to disadvantaged (low socioeconomic status) or at-risk populations (such as people who are immunocompromised, elderly, children, or pregnant women).
- Gaps or Barriers: Description of the barriers or challenges in the way of addressing the issue. Please specify the type of barrier: (financial/cost, technology/science, policy/regulation, language/cultural).
- Transferability: description of how identified solutions, if any, could be transferred to other communities, including who and where could benefit (e.g., farming communities in the Southeast United States, mining communities in New Mexico, etc.)
NOTE: All strategies must be original (i.e., developed by the Solver(s) in collaboration with at least one community-based organization) and not a summary or highlight of awarded/funded contract, grant, or cooperative agreement plans. Strategies may include, but are not limited to a community needs assessment, community building, deliberative dialogue, etc.
3. Communication Product of your choice (video, infographic, etc.)
Communication Product Content Requirements
- A product that helps to illustrate the environmental issue of concern that the highlighted community is facing.
- Provide details on resources or mitigation steps (if any) Solvers could take to help protect public health until the issue has further scientific understanding.
- See “Community Engagement Strategy Content Requirements” for more information.
Submitting Your Entry
- Send your submission via email to SCBCCompetition@epa.gov by January 31, 2024 at 11:59 PM EST.
- Email Subject Line: SCBC Competition Submission – Individual Name and affiliated organization
- Include in the attached submission the technical point of contact (name, position, title, affiliation, contact phone number, contact email address). This is the individual who will manage communications and coordination between the Submitter(s) and EPA.
- Attach the PDF document(s)
NOTE: Emails must be kept to under 9 megabytes to ensure your submission is not blocked by EPA servers.
Resources
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Rural Communities Definitions
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CASTNET is an internal EPA group that provides information on atmosphere mercury pollutions. SCBC applicants may find this information helpful as they complete their applications. Also see the CASTNET EPA web page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does environmental public health mean?
Environmental public health addresses aspects of health that are determined by interactions with the environment (i.e., exposures to air, water, soil, housing, chemical, or biological factors) and occurs on many scales: genetic, cellular, individual, family, community, regional, national, and global (Goldman L., 2007). This Competition aims to identify environmental public health issues that are affecting a rural community, and not health care-related issues.
Can an individual or team submit multiple submissions?
Individuals and Teams are eligible to apply. If a team-developed solution is selected as a winning submission, any prize funds would be divided among team members.
Can one person or organization win multiple awards?
One person or organization could win multiple awards so long as the submissions feature different engagements with different rural communities and highlight different environmental public health issues faced by the community.
Who is on the expert judging panel?
The judging panel for this Challenge and Prize Competition will include individuals from EPA and the partner organizations involved (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and National Association of County and City Health Officials).
Other questions
See the answers to questions from the SCBC informational webinar: SCBC Webinar Frequently Asked Questions (pdf) .
Contact
If you have questions about the Small Communities, Big Challenges Competition, please email SCBCCompetition@epa.gov.
To help raise awareness of the competition, please use #SCBCCompetition in your social media posts.