UCSF

This article analyzes the qualitative data collected as part of a 2015 community-based participatory cross-sectional health study conducted in two towns in a heavily polluted industrial zone on the port of Marseille, France. In addition to quantitative measures of residents' health outcomes, the open-ended question about health experiences provide important depth and a lived dimension of the possible harms inflicted on, and endured by, the population. The qualitative responses (N = 497) give voice to the diversity of health experiences and struggles of people living in industrial areas. It reveals local tacit ways that people make sense of their health issues and hypothesize their conditions beyond epidemiological statistics. We argue that including qualitative questions in statistical environmental health studies captures important embodied knowledge as survey questions can never anticipate the variety of health issues experienced. Open-ended survey responses can point to new avenues of public health research given both the social vulnerabilities of the population and the environmental health complexities of dealing with a cocktail of pollutants in industrial areas.