Citizen-Science Technology for Healthy Living at Home

摘要 人类暴露于空气污染是导致过早发病和死亡的主要环境风险因素。 在世界范围内，在美国，有色人种人患有许多与暴露有关的疾病 空气污染的比率比白人高。我们对人类暴露在空气污染中的理解是基于 很大程度上是基于室外污染物浓度的测量，大量研究发现， 在几十年的歧视性住房和土地使用政策之后，有色人种更有可能生活在美国。 室外空气污染浓度较高的社区；然而，室外空气污染数据不是 捕捉人类暴露的全貌。生活在美国的人们大部分时间都呆在家里的室内 先前的研究发现，室内空气污染物浓度--这是污染的组合 来自室外和室内的，也可能受到上述歧视性政策的影响- 与户外浓度相比，与个人暴露的相关性更好。室内空气污染很少发生 其特点是在私人住宅中安装大型、嘈杂、挑剔的监视器的成本和复杂性。 这一SBIR第二阶段项目的目标是减少美国居民暴露在 通过使家庭内空气质量的表征变得容易；负担得起；对家庭居住者有用；以及 广泛到足以影响地方、州和国家层面的政策。 该项目的第一个目标是开发一种小型、安静、易于使用的“家庭健康盒”(HHB)，它可以测量 室内颗粒物、挥发性有机化合物、二氧化碳和二氧化氮的浓度 使用低成本传感器和高保真集成采样器。HHB旨在消除 需要一名空气质量专家上门；一旦HHB被送到，居住者只需要 要将其设置在中央位置，请将其插入并打开。卫生与公众服务部收集的数据将自动进行 分析，由空气质量专业人员审查，然后合成一份报告，将(A)比较 根据准则测量的污染物水平，(B)描述潜在污染源，以及(C)建议负担得起 居住者可以采取的行动来改善他们家中的空气质量。 该项目的第二个目标是评估HHB样本和随后收到的个性化的 《家庭健康报告》(HHR)帮助家庭随着时间的推移改善室内空气质量。一个种族上的-和 将与医疗保健提供者和社区合作，招募不同种族的家庭 丹佛和芝加哥的组织。家庭将被随机分为干预组和对照组。住宅在 两组都将接受三次为期一周的HHB部署，相隔六周。在前两个之后 部署后，干预组中的家庭将获得HHR。我们将(A)调查空气是否和如何 对照和干预家庭的质量随时间的变化以及(B)调查干预家庭对公用事业的影响 家庭健康报告。所有家庭都将在研究结束时收到HHR。

Abstract Human exposure to air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for premature morbidity and mortality worldwide and, in the United States (U.S.), people of color suffer from many diseases associated with exposure to air pollution at higher rates than white people. Our understanding of human exposure to air pollution is based largely on measurements of outdoor pollutant concentrations and a multitude of studies have found that, following decades of discriminatory housing and land-use policies, people of color are more likely to live in U.S. neighborhoods with higher concentrations of outdoor air pollution; however, outdoor air pollution data do not capture the full picture of human exposure. People living in the U.S. spend most of their time indoors at home and prior studies have found that in-home air pollutant concentrations—which, being a combination of pollution from outdoor and indoor sources, are also likely to be impacted by the aforementioned discriminatory policies— tend to be better-correlated with personal exposures than outdoor concentrations. In-home air pollution is rarely characterized due to the cost and complexity of setting up large, noisy, finicky monitors in private residences. The goal of this Phase II SBIR project is to reduce the amount of air pollution U.S. residents are exposed to at home by making characterization of in-home air quality easy; affordable; useful to home occupants; and widespread enough to influence local-, state-, and national-level policies. The first aim of this project is to develop a small, quiet, easy-to-use “Home Health Box” (HHB) that measures indoor concentrations of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide using a combination of low-cost sensors and high-fidelity integrated samplers. The HHB is designed to eliminate the need for an air quality professional to go to the home; once the HHB is delivered, an occupant simply needs to set it in a central location, plug it in, and switch it on. Data collected by the HHB will undergo automated analyses, be reviewed by an air quality professional, and then be synthesized into a report that will (a) compare measured pollutant levels to guidelines, (b) describe potential pollution sources, and (c) suggest affordable actions that occupants could take to improve their in-home air quality. The second aim of this project is to evaluate whether HHB sampling and subsequent receipt of a personalized “Home Health Report” (HHR) helps households improve their in-home air quality over time. A racially- and ethnically-diverse group of households will be recruited in partnership with healthcare providers and community organizations in Denver and Chicago. Homes will be randomized into intervention and control groups. Homes in both groups will receive three, one-week HHB deployments spaced six weeks apart. After each of the first two deployments, homes in the intervention group will receive a HHR. We will (a) investigate whether and how air quality changes over time in control and intervention homes and (b) survey intervention households on the utility of the Home Health Reports. All homes will receive a HHR at the end of the study.