By Brooke Fisher 

It takes a village to save a village. A floating village, that is. Drawing on the expertise of researchers from six different UW departments, an interdisciplinary team of researchers is working to improve the health and living conditions of an impoverished floating community in the Peruvian Amazon.

“The residents have chronic health issues and diseases and we know their bodies are being attacked,” said CEE assistant professor Rebecca Neumann.

From cleaning contaminated water to improving food security, the researchers are implementing innovative interventions to enhance both the built and natural environments in the village, called Claverito. They will measure their success based on the “before and after” health of village members and hope to ultimately share what they learn with other struggling communities.  

“We will use our experience to develop a replicable implementation model and strategy that could be applied to other insecure housing communities in the future,” said professor Joseph Zunt, a neurologist and professor in the departments of neurology and global health, who is one of the project visionaries.

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