Children's Exposure to Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution within the SHEAR Project in Rwanda

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Abstract: More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution and nearly the same number perish from indoor exposure to dirty fuels. Despite the largest burden of disease being in developing countries, the vast majority of literature has focused on wealthy nations and there is a particular absence of high-quality authorship on sub-Saharan Africa. Children are highly susceptible to air pollution health impacts due to their high breathing rates, developing lung structures and immune systems; they are thus a population of particular interest when assessing the impacts of air pollution. This is not currently possible in sub-Saharan Africa region due to a lack of scientific understanding of the sources, causes and impacts of air pollution, inefficient data collection and analysis, weak air quality standards, and inadequate funding for air quality monitoring stations. Most studies on the health effects of air pollution on children have used exposure estimates from home locations; only a small number have tested the association between outdoor air pollution levels measured inside and outside of households and a range of children’s health outcomes, thus limiting the information on the extent to which indoor and outdoor air quality affect each other. I propose here a research and career development plan to study children’s exposure to air pollution in rural Rwanda and to address these knowledge gaps. The overall aims of the research is to develop a network of low-cost monitors for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution in rural Rwanda (Aim 1) and In conjunction with exposure data collected from the SHEAR trial (described below), examine the extent to which both outdoor and indoor pollution sources contribute to children’s exposure to PM2.5 (Aim 2). This research, conducted over 3 years will synthesize current data and knowledge using field measurement, modelling, surveys and multivariate analysis. The proposed project aligns well with the Sustainable Household Energy Adoption in Rwanda (SHEAR) Project (led by my mentoring team), which I will leverage for this K43. I will create a monitoring network and evaluate indoor/outdoor relationships using eligible households within with SHEAR project. Simultaneous personal (children’s) and household level measurements of exposure to PM2.5 will take place over a 3-year period (reflecting repeated measures by season). Chemical speciation of collected PM2.5 will (organic and elemental carbon, metals, ions) will allow pollution exposures (at the community, household, personal level) to be apported to various indoor/outdoor sources (i.e., vehicle emissions, road dust, biomass smoke).This research study will result in the publication of three peer-reviewed papers and a policy focused- report to the Rwanda government. This work will enable me to work directly with Drs. John Volckens and Maggie Clark, Professors at Colorado State University (CSU) and Dr Theoneste Ntakirutimana, Professor at the University of Rwanda, recognized experts in air pollution, exposure science, epidemiology, public health. The trainings activities will include (1) Engineering / sensor development; (2) Data Science and statistics ;(3) Epidemiology and health effects; and (4) Health communication.