SBIR-STTR Award

Environmental risk factors are attributable to ~50% of the chronic respiratory disease burden in the U.S. and to ~10-15% of the burden from other non-communicable diseases (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes). Exposure to environmental risk factors occurs through various forms of water and air pollution, with a smaller attribution to sources like noise, radiation, and physical hazards. Much of this exposure occurs at home, where people spend 70% of their lives. Yet, the notion that your home should be good for your health is often taken for granted. Homes can be significant sources of harmful pollutant exposure. Indoor levels of established and emerging pollutants, including carcinogens, endocrine-disrupting compounds, criteria air pollutants, and harmful microbes, are often elevated relative to levels measured outside the home. These exposures are important determinants of non-communicable diseases and they are magnified by racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities that prevail across the country. Thus, there is a growing need for accessible environmental testing tools and educational programs to create awareness and inspire change in living conditions for improved long-term health. The cost and complexity of existing environmental measurement technologies are in large part why the average household, especially minority or socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, are unaware of the environmental stressors in their place of residence. This Phase I proposal will develop and demonstrate a novel and inexpensive environmental home assessment tool (Home Health Box) for measuring air and water quality in homes. The Home Health Box is a sensor and sample collection system that can be deployed by the home occupant quickly, simply, and with minimal effort. Analysis will include environmental stressors in air (particulate matter, black carbon, metals, volatile organics, mold/bacteria) and water (residual chlorine, metals, bacteria). After constructing and testing the boxes we will deploy them across minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged homes in Fort Collins, CO. Measurement data will be communicated back to the home occupant (with an emphasis on culturally-sensitive design of communications). The Home Health Box will empower individuals to understand, recognize, and mitigate environmental hazards in the home – a place where the majority of exposure tends to occur. Two aims are proposed: (1) Develop a simple, portable sampling and sensor system to quantify environmental stressors using a citizen-science approach and (2) demonstrate performance and value of the Home Health Box concept in a pilot field study of racial and ethnic minority residents in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
Project Narrative The home is where the majority of one's lifetime exposures to harmful environmental contaminants occurs, and such exposures are disproportionately high in minority or socioeconomically disadvantaged homes. We propose to develop a simple, inexpensive, low-cost measurement system for home environmental contaminants that can be deployed by the home occupant quickly, simply, and with minimal effort. The “Home Health Box” will offer more widespread awareness of environmental hazards in the home to promote healthier living.

NIH Spending Category:
Basic Behavioral and Social Science; Behavioral and Social Science; Bioengineering; Climate-Related Exposures and Conditions; Clinical Research; Health Disparities; Health Effects of Indoor Air Pollution; Minority Health; Prevention

Project Terms:
Affect; African American; Air; Air Pollutants; Air Pollution; Airborne Particulate Matter; Area; Assessment tool; Asthma; Awareness; Back; Bacteria; Biological Products; burden of illness; Carbon Black; Carcinogens; Cardiovascular Diseases; checkup examination; Chicago; Child; Chlorine; Chronic; citizen science; Colorado; Communication; contaminated drinking water; cost; Cost Measures; Country; Data; Data Collection; design; Devices; Diabetes Mellitus; Diagnosis; Disease; Educational Materials; Endocrine Disruptors; Environmental Hazards; Environmental Monitoring; Environmental Pollution; Environmental Risk Factor; environmental stressor; ethnic minority population; Exposure to; Feedback; field study; hazard; Health; Home environment; Household; Human; improved; Incidence; Individual; Inequality; instrument; Knowledge; Latina; Latino; lead contamination; Legal patent; Lung diseases; Malignant Neoplasms; Measurement; Measures; Metals; Methods; Microbe; Minority; Molds; new technology; Noise; Not Hispanic or Latino; novel; off-patent; Outcome; Particulate Matter; Performance; Phase; pollutant; portability; Poverty; Prevalence; prevent; programs; Public Health; racial and ethnic; racial minority; Radiation; recruit; Research; residence; Residual state; Resources; Risk; Risk Factors; rural underserved; sample collection; Sampling; sensor; sensor technology; socioeconomic disadvantage; socioeconomics; Source; stressor; success; System; Technology; Testing; tool; Validation; volatile organic compound; Water; Water Pollution; water quality

Human exposure to air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for premature morbidity and mortalityworldwide and, in the United States (U.S.), people of color suffer from many diseases associated with exposureto air pollution at higher rates than white people. Our understanding of human exposure to air pollution is basedlargely 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 notcapture the full picture of human exposure. People living in the U.S. spend most of their time indoors at homeand prior studies have found that in-home air pollutant concentrations-which, being a combination of pollutionfrom 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 rarelycharacterized 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 athome by making characterization of in-home air quality easy; affordable; useful to home occupants; andwidespread 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 measuresindoor concentrations of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen dioxideusing a combination of low-cost sensors and high-fidelity integrated samplers. The HHB is designed to eliminatethe need for an air quality professional to go to the home; once the HHB is delivered, an occupant simply needsto set it in a central location, plug it in, and switch it on. Data collected by the HHB will undergo automatedanalyses, be reviewed by an air quality professional, and then be synthesized into a report that will (a) comparemeasured pollutant levels to guidelines, (b) describe potential pollution sources, and (c) suggest affordableactions 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- andethnically-diverse group of households will be recruited in partnership with healthcare providers and communityorganizations in Denver and Chicago. Homes will be randomized into intervention and control groups. Homes inboth groups will receive three, one-week HHB deployments spaced six weeks apart. After each of the first twodeployments, homes in the intervention group will receive a HHR. We will (a) investigate whether and how airquality changes over time in control and intervention homes and (b) survey intervention households on the utilityof the Home Health Reports. All homes will receive a HHR at the end of the study.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
Project Narrative Exposure to air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for the global burden of disease. People living in the United States (U.S.) spend most of their time indoors at home, and data from several U.S.-based studies suggest that the majority of personal exposure to air pollution occurs at home, but the paucity of in-home air pollution monitoring makes it difficult to characterize or reduce at-home exposures. We will develop technology that makes it more convenient and affordable to measure air pollutant levels inside a home, thus making it possible to characterize air quality inside a large number of homes and providing households, community organizations, and government entities with information that can help them take action to reduce the amount of air pollution to which they, their members, and their constituents, respectively, are exposed.

Project Terms: