Grantee Research Project Results
2023 Progress Report: School Resilience to Wildland Smoke and Outdoor sources of Fine & Ultrafine Particles
EPA Grant Number: R840234Title: School Resilience to Wildland Smoke and Outdoor sources of Fine & Ultrafine Particles
Investigators: Austin, Elena , Karr, Catherine , Seto, Edmund , Larson, Timothy V.
Institution: University of Washington
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: September 1, 2021 through August 31, 2024
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2022 through August 31,2023
Project Amount: $548,537
RFA: Interventions and Communication Strategies to Reduce Health Risks of Wildland Fire Smoke Exposures (2021) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Early Career Awards , Air Quality and Air Toxics , Wildfires
Objective:
The goals of this research are to 1) Implement a classroom-based Portable Air Cleaner (PAC) intervention to reduce exposure to wildland fire smoke across 10 Washington (WA) State schools, 2) Observe the impact of PAC intervention on respiratory health of the students using a randomized-controlled study design within school, and 3) Engage with participating schools to adapt an existing hands-on air quality curriculum aimed at increasing environmental health literacy on the topic of ambient smoke, air quality and health.
Progress Summary:
To date we have deployed air quality sensors in 16 schools across WA State. This exceeds our stated goal of deploying interventions in 10 schools, partly due to some supplementary funding to support PAC intervention and evaluation provided to the project from the State of WA. The air quality intervention packages have been well received across the school sites that have agreed to participate in our project. Each intervention package included 1 outdoor Purple Air PA-II Flex sensor, and 5 classroom-based intervention packages that include an indoor mounted Purple Air PA-II Flex sensor, a Winix XQ Large Room Portable Tower Air Purifier, and a Onset HOBO UX120-018 Plug Load Logger to monitor HEPA filter usage (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Air quality intervention package deployed across 16 WA State schools
In April, June, and August 2023 a site visit was conducted at each school. During these visits, the microSD card in each PA and HOBO were retrieved and the data logged. HEPA pre-filters were vacuumed during every site visit as routine upkeep. The HEPA filters were replaced during the August visit. This was a critical maintenance task that had to be performed by study staff. We also equipped classrooms with cleaning kits and instructions at the start of the study but did not observe these were widely used by teachers or custodians (Figure 2).
Figure 2. A) Pre-filter, loaded with lint and dusted during quarterly visit. B) Pre-filter after project staff cleaning procedure.
Intervention effectiveness is still being evaluated. Our interim analysis of a period of poor air quality (07-02-2023 through 07-07-2023) highlighted some of the challenges and benefits of our intervention approach. During this period, outdoor concentrations reached a maximum of 165 µg/m3 with an average of 15.8 µg/m3. Across our study area, the average indoor/outdoor ratio when the HEPA was off was 0.926 compared to 0.471 when the HEPA was on. Thus, in events of higher-than-average PM2.5 concentrations, HEPAs were 49% effective at reducing PM2.5 infiltration. Figure 3 displays the overall effect of the HEPA filter status across the classrooms of observations in this preliminary analysis.
Figure 3. District-wide average PM2.5 concentrations from 07-02-2023 through 07-07-2023 by HEPA status. Background colors correspond with the EPA’s Air Quality Index (AQI) categories.
We also interviewed key stakeholders across WA State to better understand motivators and barriers to implementing a PAC in school classrooms. This process revealed that while many school administrators and teachers generally believed that indoor air quality was an important element of a healthy school environment, there were important concerns around PAC use including noise levels, lack of guidance on effectiveness in their school environment, and PAC maintenance and sustainability concerns. Emerging from these interviews were key recommendations for successful elements of a school based intervention including:
- Improve HVAC systems including upgrading filters, implement centralized control systems, and ticket systems for tracking indoor air quality (IAQ) concerns.
- Test IAQ and provide support for testing air quality including financial support for air quality monitoring instruments and personnel.
- Increase availability of reliable IAQ information and education.
Implement management systems for PACs including tracking, maintenance, and supply of filters.
Future Activities:
Key upcoming activities include collecting, analyzing, and publishing results of the intervention currently implemented in school settings. This will be used to determine intervention effectiveness and be distilled into report-back documents intended for users in each school setting.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 5 publications | 1 publications in selected types | All 1 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Carmona N, Seto E, Gould TR, Rasyid E, Shirai JH, Cummings B, Hayward L, Larson TV, Austin E. Indoor air quality intervention in schools: Effectiveness of a portable HEPA filter deployment in five schools impacted by roadway and aircraft pollution sources. Atmosphere 2022;13(10):1623 |
R840234 (2023) |
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Relevant Websites:
UW Healthy Air, Healthy Schools Project Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.