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Environmental justice research driven by academics and policymakers often overlooks the valuable insights and leadership of the communities most impacted by environmental hazards. When institution‐led research approaches are employed, inadequate community ownership and limited institutional accountability hinder the effectiveness of environmental public health interventions. In contrast, a community‐owned and ‐managed approach to environmental justice research can guide community members in developing evidence‐based interventions. This paper outlines a community‐led environmental health assessment survey (sample = 100) and resulting community actions over 6 years (2017–2023) in a Northern California farmworker community with a perceived high prevalence of cancer and exposure to environmental hazards in households, neighborhoods, and job sites. Local resident experts in Knights Landing, CA, documented community risk factors and exposures in collaboration with interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate student‐researchers. The survey instrument focused on environmental hazards identified by local resident experts including vehicular and agricultural pollution, occupational pesticide contact, and sun exposure. Survey findings highlighted the need for targeted interventions to reduce environmental health risks, such as academic outreach programs, county investments in public services, and community‐led mutual aid initiatives. Despite academic reservations about our non‐random sampling method and data collection by local resident experts, our project sparked substantial actions and investments with minimal personnel and financial resources. Local leaders working with student‐researchers developed more effective environmental public health interventions through a community‐owned and ‐managed approach that went beyond the efforts of local regulatory and research institutions. Plain Language Summary: Agricultural communities in California experience environmental injustice related to toxic exposures in environmental, household, and occupational settings. Environmental justice movements seek to ensure a clean and healthy environment for all communities by mitigating these toxic exposures and amplifying community voices to remove social, economic, and political barriers to healthy environments. This research project started in 2016 when Knights Landing residents revealed their suspicions that environmental carcinogens were potentially causing a high prevalence of cancer in their neighborhood. The community leaders and university researchers partnered to conduct a community survey. The survey results were used by community leaders to establish the following action priorities: household pesticide exposure, addictive substance misuse, access to cancer screening, occupational safety, housing quality, and neighborhood isolation from health services. Feasible and prompt actions were implemented from 2017 to 2023 within the limited resources of this unincorporated community. Communities can initiate a swift, customized, representative environmental health assessment to serve as a starting point when seeking institutional support, funding, or larger research initiatives. Our approach may serve as a model for environmental justice researchers striving to promptly reduce environmental health risks in marginalized communities. Key Points: Agricultural community residents led a low‐budget environmental health survey to develop evidence‐based public health interventionsCommunities can use a carcinogen exposure survey to prioritize and develop actions that reduce cancer burdens in their neighborhoodWhen residents' priorities drive research directions, community solutions can be promptly launched within limited resource communities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to air pollution has been linked to pulmonary diseases. Naphthalene (NA), an abundant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in tobacco smoke and urban air, is a model toxicant for air pollution effects in the lung. Repeated exposures to NA in male mice result in tolerance, defined as the emergence of a resistant cell phenotype after prior exposure. Tolerance has not been studied in females. Females have sex differences in airway epithelial responses and in the prevalence of certain airway diseases. Male and female mice were exposed to a toleranceinducing regimen of NA, and lungs were examined by airway level to characterize the cellular changes associated with repeated NA exposure and to assess the expression of genes and proteins involved in NA bioactivation and detoxification. The airway epithelium in treated males resembled that of controls. Females in the tolerant state were characterized by dense populations of ciliated cells in midlevel, distal, and bifurcating airways and a lower abundance of Clara cells at all airway levels. Cytotoxicity following a secondary challenge dose was also greater in females than males. Furthermore, females had decreased gene/protein expression of CYP2F2, a P-450 that metabolizes NA to a toxic epoxide, and glutamate-cysteine ligase, the rate-limiting enzyme in glutathione synthesis, than NA-tolerant males at all airway levels examined. We conclude that, while females develop tolerance, sex differences exist in the tolerant state by airway level, and females remain more susceptible than males to repeated exposures to NA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]