The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore the per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure experience and associated stressors, to inform public health efforts to support psychosocial health and resilience in affected communities. Semi-structured interviews (n = 9) were conducted from July–September 2019 with community members and state public health department representatives from areas with PFAS-contaminated drinking water. Thematic analysis was completed and themes were described and summarized. Reported stressors included health concerns and uncertainty, institutional delegitimization and associated distrust, and financial burdens. Interviewees provided several strategies to reduce stress and promote stress coping capacity and resilience, including showing empathy and validating the normalcy of experiencing stress; building trust through visible action and sustained community engagement; providing information and actionable guidance; discussing stress carefully; fostering stress coping capacity and resilience with opportunities to build social capital and restore agency; and building capacity among government agencies and health care providers to address psychosocial stress. While communities affected by PFAS contamination will face unavoidable stressors, positive interactions with government responders and health care providers may help reduce negative stress. More research on how best to integrate community psychosocial health and stress coping and resilience concepts into the public health response to environmental contamination could be helpful in addressing these stressors.

Coloniality describes the way in which racialized conceptions of being, personhood, and morality inherent in colonial regimes are maintained long after the formal end of colonial enterprises. Central to coloniality has been the material and psychological colonization of space and time, largely by Western and industrialized nations. We propose the importance of understanding the coloniality of time and space through a historically grounded framework called time-space distanciation (TSD). This framework posits that via the global spread of capitalism through colonization, psychological understandings of time and space have been separated from one another, such that they are now normatively treated as distinct entities, each with their own abstract and quantifiable value. We discuss the construct and its centrality to coloniality, as well as the ways in which contemporary psychology has been complicit in proliferating the coloniality of psychologies of time and space. Finally, we discuss ways to employ the decolonial strategies of denaturalization, indigenization, and accompaniment in the context of future research on the psychology of time and space. TSD contributes to decolonial efforts by combatting the reification of hegemonic psychological constructs, showing how these constructs arise as a function of historical changes in understanding, experience, and use of time and space.