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Research Theme: Community Engagement & Advocacy

Includes community-engaged scholarship and learning, as well as applied scholarship toward societal change

Amy Wagenfeld

Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, EDAC, FAOTA. Amy’s roles as an occupational therapist include therapeutic and universal design consultant, educator, researcher, and author. In addition to her role in the Department of Landscape Architecture, she is a faculty member in the Boston University Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctoral program and Principal of Amy Wagenfeld |Design. She is a Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association, holds evidence-based design accreditation and certification (EDAC) through the Center for Health Design and specialty certification in environmental modifications (SCEM) through the American Occupational Therapy Association, and certification in Healthcare Garden Design through the Chicago Botanical Garden. Amy was recently awarded the American Occupational Therapy Association Recognition of Achievement  and the American Society of Landscape Architects Outstanding Service Award for her unique blending of occupational therapy and design.

With a strong background in human development, Amy is passionate about providing people of all ages, abilities, and cultures equitable, inclusive, and safe access to therapeutic environments in which to recreate, learn, and socialize and recognizes that successful design must, at its core, support mental health and foster resilience. Her work focuses on universal design, programming, and evaluation of environments that support physical and emotional rehabilitation and learning across the lifespan in children’s, educational, healthcare, senior living, military, correctional, and community settings.

Amy’s collaborative design projects include a sensory garden for individuals with autism, a therapeutic recreation center, a universally designed serenity garden at a Florida state park, a garden for children in the foster care system, a garden for young children whose families are experiencing homelessness, memory care and assisted living gardens, gardens in correctional facilities, educational facilities, and at military healthcare facilities, and redesign of a community mental health center and garden. Amy served on the design team for three American Society of Landscape Architecture award winning therapeutic gardens, as well as was a recipient of a silver medal from the International Association of Universal Design, a Healthcare Environment Landscape Award, and two New York state design awards.

Amy presents and publishes widely in peer-reviewed and popular press publications on topics relating to collaboration with designers and inclusive access to nature. She is co-author, with Daniel Winterbottom, of the award-winning book, Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces published by Timber Press in 2015 and author of Nature Notes, a column for Exceptional Needs Today magazine.

Advancing Active Transportation Through Mobility Justice and Centering Community

Baquero, B. I., Berney, R., Romano, E. F. T., Hicks, O., Getch, R., Hall, C., Mooney, S. J., Rosenberg, D., Shannon, K. L., Saelens, B. E., & Hoerster, K. D. (2024). Advancing Active Transportation Through Mobility Justice and Centering Community. Health Equity, 8(1), 72–730. https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2024.0087

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Abstract

Objectives: We established a community–academic–policy partnership to examine mobility challenges and opportunities by centering members of a diverse South Seattle neighborhood.
Methods: Three participatory research methods were used: (a) 30- to 60-min qualitative interviews with community leaders (n = 12) and members (n = 16); (b) a photovoice with youth (n = 10); and (c) mobility audits. We also engaged extensively in community dissemination and advocacy.
Results: Four major themes emerged: experiences with the built environment; conflicting views on promoting active transportation; experiences of danger, violence, and racism while moving in the community; and pride and connections within the community. Mobility audit findings reinforced many community member messages about needed infrastructure changes. Participants consistently expressed the need for neighborhood and city-wide structural improvements to support transportation and mobility, including enhanced public transportation; better lighting, crosswalks, sidewalks, pavement, and curb cuts; and maintenance of a neighborhood mixed-use trail. Participants shared the importance of community connection while walking, rolling, or using public transit and wanted to maintain this experience.
Conclusions: Collectively, findings identified ways to increase nonmotorized transportation and public transit access, safety, and resilience, centering solutions on communities of color. We disseminated and amplified community recommendations to advance mobility justice in South Seattle via a community forum, developing a website, holding meetings with local leaders, and writing through print and electronic media. A key, novel strength of our project was the addition of community organizations, community–academic partners, and government leaders from the project’s inception. Local leaders should engage in mobility justice-focused community engagement to advance equity.

CBE Research and the role of Community Engagement

In FY24, CBE researchers have been awarded a number of grants and contracts for projects that include a community engagement component, defined as “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial creation and exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity,” by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.  In FY24 (July 2023 – June 2024), CBE researchers were awarded 17 grant and contract awards,…

Hackathon co-supported by Urban Design and Planning featured in GeekWire

The Urban Resilience Hackathon took place in May 2024, and was facilitated by DemocracyLab, with support from the National Science Foundation LEAP-HI project, and the CBE Urban Design and Planning department. Hackathons are typically based in tech, so this urban planning and policy hackathon was unique in its focus. Dr. Branden Born, chair of Urban Design and Planning, said the hackathon supported community engagement, and explored ways to “do planning” better. Dan Abramson from Urban Design and Planning, along with…

Rebecca Bachman

Rebecca’s long-term design and research interests involve exploring a gap between built environment design fields and public health research. She believes that an essential component of design activism must be research that can inform equitable policy. Rebecca holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Graduate Certificate of Global Health from the University of Washington, and is a current NIH Fogarty Scholar. She has spent recent years working with the design-action-research firm Traction on design and research projects that examine built environments as social determinants of human and ecological health in marginalized urban communities in Peru. In addition to English, Rebecca speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and has a blended background in international relations, journalism, and horticulture—all of which is integral to her current interdisciplinary work.

Post-pandemic transit commute: Lessons from focus group discussions on the experience of essential workers during COVID-19

Ashour, L. A., Shen, Q., Moudon, A., Cai, M., Wang, Y., & Brown, M. (2024). Post-pandemic transit commute: Lessons from focus group discussions on the experience of essential workers during COVID-19. Journal of Transport Geography, 116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103832

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Abstract

Public transit services, which provide a critical lifeline for many essential workers, were severely interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. As institutions gradually return to normal in-person operations, it is critical to understand how the pandemic affected essential workers' commute and what it will take to ensure the effective recovery of transit ridership and enhance the long-term resiliency and equity of public transportation systems for those who need it the most. This study used focus group discussions with essential workers who were pre-pandemic transit riders to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their commute perceptions, experiences, motives, and challenges and explore the potential changes in their travel behavior post-pandemic. We used NVivo 12 Pro to conduct a thematic analysis of the transcripted discussion data and examined patterns of commute mode change with respect to participants' attributes, including job type, home location, and gender. The results show that public transit had multiple reliability and frequency challenges during the pandemic, which resulted in most participants switching away from public transportation. With the increased availability of hybrid remote work and pandemic-related parking policies, driving emerged as a safer and more affordable commute mode for many pre-pandemic transit riders, rendering transit services less efficient for those who continued to rely on it. Planning for post-COVID resilient and reliable mobility requires a major rethinking of providing an efficient and effective transport system and a more fundamental approach to long-term public transport policy. To recover transit ridership, transit agencies need to ensure transit service availability and provide reliable transit information through smartphone apps. Similarly, transit agencies need to coordinate with other employers to provide free or heavily subsidized transit passes, to facilitate the recovery of transit demand effectively.

Keywords

Essential workers; Commute; Public transit; Focus group discussions; COVID-19 pandemic; Post-pandemic

Sarah Randall

Sarah Randall, MPH is an Administrative Specialist in the College of Built Environments Office of Research. She works to support, promote, and elevate research operations within the College of Built Environments. Sarah has a Master of Public Health from the University of Washington, specializing in qualitative research methods. She is interested in working on topics related to climate change and health. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Language & Literature from the University of Washington.

Final day of Change Stories Residential Knowledge Exchange

On Thursday, March 21st, the Change Stories team gathered for the final day of shared learning sessions. The first session was focused on developing a theory of change for the project. Small group discussions returned to topics from previous days, including how to effectively apply the decolonial research approach that is at the core of this work together. Deconstructing the initially drafted theory of change, the group identified the importance of co-creating guiding materials for the project. We enjoyed our…