Enhancing the Human Wellbeing Vital Signs through Inclusive Engagement: A Report for Empowering People in Communities

This report outlines the processes and results from a collaborative multi-year (2021-2023) project focused on inclusively engaging Puget Sound residents in order to enhance the Human Wellbeing (HWB) Vital Signs (VS). The HWB VS are a series of social indicators used to monitor the health and recovery of Puget Sound and are coordinated by the Puget Sound Partnership, a Washington state agency. The HWB VS are primarily monitored by Oregon State University's Human Dimensions Lab. This project focused on enhancing inclusive engagement among Hilltop residents, notably Black and African American community members, in the City of Tacoma, a community underrepresented within current human wellbeing monitoring efforts.

This project included establishing new sustainable community partnerships, co-creating knowledge with community collaborators, and capturing lessons learned to further this community-based monitoring work for the Puget Sound Partnership and its ecosystem recovery network. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was conducted to co-develop and co-implement this project with Empowering People in Communities (EPIC), a community organization located in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, WA. While the initial focus was Black and African American residents, the project overtime shifted to emphasize the place-based Hilltop community. The CBPR approach included the co-creation of facilitated dialogues (community workshops) (n=52) and implementation of an optional HWB VS Survey (n=50).

Table 1. Human Wellbeing Vital Signs

Table 2. Community Dimensions of Wellbeing

Overall, the facilitated dialogues demonstrated that the HWB VS (Table 1) were relevant and resonated among participating Hilltop community members. This was reflected in the workshop responses. For example, Sense of Place (including Psychological Wellbeing and Life Satisfaction), Cultural Wellbeing (including spiritual/religious practices and family activities), Good Governance (or perceived lack thereof), and Outdoor Activity were featured prominently as themes (coded responses) among participating Hilltop community members. New Community Dimensions of human wellbeing² also emerged during the workshops (Table 2). For example, Accessibility, Equity, Physical Health, Place and Landscape, and Plants and Trees were common emergent and salient Community Dimensions among participating Hilltop residents. Some of these new Community Dimensions demonstrated shared environmental justice concerns and cultural, aesthetic, existence, inherent, relational, and recreational values associated with these natural attributes and contributors to human wellbeing (Chan and others 2012; Bieling and others 2014; Belaire and others 2015; Dickinson and Hobbs 2017; Wilson et al. 2018; Jones and others 2019; Jiang and Marggraf 2022). Responses also demonstrated the role of place and linkages among places, landscapes or landscape features, and human wellbeing among community members (Bieling and others 2014; Jones and others 2019).

Table 3. Human Wellbeing Survey Results Summary

Table 4. Regional & Latinx Human Wellbeing Vital Signs Survey Results

Regional & Latinx Human Wellbeing Survey Results (2018-2022)³

Overall, the participating Hilltop community members demonstrated similar patterns of human wellbeing as it relates to the health of Puget Sound when compared to responses from other Human Wellbeing Vital Signs Surveys, with some variations (Fleming and others 2018; Fleming and others 2021; Harrington and others 2023)(Tables 3-4). Hilltop community members had similar average responses to some VS questions. For example, Hilltop respondents had similar average responses to Sense of Place (5.05), Cultural Wellbeing (3.29), and Local Foods (1.39) when compared to regional survey findings. While somewhat similar, some stark variations did emerge compared to the regional survey findings. For example, Hilltop respondents had lower average responses for Sound Stewardship (2.53), Life Satisfaction (3.67), and Good Governance (3.51). The latter of which further highlights the environmental justice concerns reflected during the workshops, as Accessibility, Equity, and Safety (mentioned less than the former two Community Dimensions) were linked to a shared perception of poor or a lack of governance among community members. All detailed findings and corresponding data visualizations are outlined in the following sections.

Notes:

1 The Human Wellbeing Vital Signs include Drinking Water, and the biophysical Vital Signs include Freshwater and Marine Water Quality. Given that many community members mentioned water in various forms, these three Vital Signs were merged into one (Water or Water Quality) in much of this report.

2 Human wellbeing was determined to be the primary term used during the workshops (rather than health). This was an intentional choice made during the workshop co-creation process and was determined to be more relevant to the participating Hilltop community members.

3 All data stems from the 2018, 2020, Latinx 2021, and 2022 Human Wellbeing Surveys (Fleming and others 2018; Fleming and others 2021; Justiniano 2021; Harrington and others 2023).