High efficiency particulate air cleaner intervention to reduce respiratory virus exposure in elementary schools

项目摘要/摘要 在理解学校环境在多大程度上有助于 与呼吸道病毒接触有关，对减少接触的有效环境干预知之甚少。 我们的长期目标是为孩子们创造健康的室内学校环境。这样做的总体目标是 应用是确定影响呼吸道病毒的环境预测因素和潜在干预措施 在小学中的暴露。我们将扩展市中心哮喘学校强大的基础设施 干预研究(SICAS-2，ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02291302)，一项为期五年的随机对照试验 由我们一组安慰剂控制的教室高效颗粒物空气净化器进行 干预措施，以在新冠肺炎大流行后继续招募队列。我们将测试我们的中央 可改变的建筑环境因素影响空气传播呼吸道病毒暴露和感染的假说 在小学通过以下具体目标：(1)确定随机化的效果 安慰剂对照HEPA清洁剂干预减少教室空气传播呼吸道病毒暴露；(2) 确定随机安慰剂对照的HEPA清洁剂干预在减少症状方面的有效性 以及哮喘儿童的无症状呼吸道病毒感染。这种方法是创新的，因为我们 同时在一所学校的背景下审问所有主要的人类呼吸道病毒 随机试验的重点是环境干预。这项拟议的研究意义重大，因为如果 HEPA干预可以减少呼吸道病毒在学校的暴露和感染，这是一个即时的 采取切实可行的干预措施，为小学生创造更安全的室内环境。 这一建议的结果可以推广到其他公共室内环境。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT There is a fundamental gap in understanding the extent to which the school environment contributes to respiratory virus exposure, and less is known about effective environmental interventions to reduce exposure. Our long-term goal is to create healthy indoor school environments for children. The overall objective of this application is to identify environmental predictors of and potential interventions influencing respiratory virus exposure in elementary schools. We will extend the robust infrastructure of the School Inner-City Asthma Intervention Study (SICAS-2, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02291302), a five-year randomized controlled trial conducted by our group of a placebo-controlled classroom high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) cleaner intervention to continue cohort recruitment in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period. We will test our central hypothesis that modifiable built environment factors influence airborne respiratory virus exposure and infection in elementary schools through the following specific aims: (1) To determine the efficacy of a randomized placebo controlled HEPA cleaner intervention in reducing classroom airborne respiratory virus exposure; (2) To determine the efficacy of a randomized placebo controlled HEPA cleaner intervention in reducing symptomatic and asymptomatic respiratory viral infections in asthmatic children. The approach is innovative, because we are simultaneously interrogating all major human respiratory viruses in the context of a school-based randomized trial focused on an environmental intervention. The proposed research is significant, because if the HEPA intervention can reduce respiratory virus exposure and infections in schools, it is an immediately actionable and practical intervention to create safer indoor environments for elementary school children. Results from this proposal may be generalizable to other public indoor settings.