Grantee Research Project Results
2023 Progress Report: Evaluating the effectiveness of interventions on reducing wildfire smoke exposure and health risks in low-income hard-to-reach communities in California
EPA Grant Number: R840240Title: Evaluating the effectiveness of interventions on reducing wildfire smoke exposure and health risks in low-income hard-to-reach communities in California
Investigators: Wong-Parodi, Gabrielle , Cho, Seung-Hyun
Institution: Stanford University , RTI International
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: September 1, 2021 through April 28, 2025
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2022 through August 31,2023
Project Amount: $999,846
RFA: Interventions and Communication Strategies to Reduce Health Risks of Wildland Fire Smoke Exposures (2021) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Watersheds , Endocrine Disruptors , Environmental Engineering , Air Quality and Air Toxics , Wildfires
Objective:
The main goal of this project is to assess the effectiveness of technical and health risk communication interventions and their interaction with behavior in reducing wildland fire smoke exposures and associated health risks among low-income and non-English speaking communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Specific aims to achieve this goal are to: (1) test the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing exposure and health risks over time, (2) test how the effectiveness of different combinations of these interventions is moderated by behavior over time, and (3) test how and why behavior is affected by use of the app-delivered native language messaging over time.
Progress Summary:
Our accomplishments during this project perod include:
- Conducting Phase 3 (Full Scale Intervention).
- Our community engagement approaches including partnerships with community organizations (i.e., El Concilio of San Mateo County and Climate Resilient Communities) and using a Promotores model were effective in recruiting our hard-to-reach population.
- Received invaluable feedback from the Community Advisory Committee to improve and strengthen the overall project design, protocols, and data collection.
- Implemented a quality control system to monitor metadata and measurement data to assess data quality.
- Examined spatial and temporal variability of ambient PM concentration measurements and compared with indoor air quality measurements from pilot testing in the absence of a wildfire smoke event. Conducted comparison study with similar and affluent households, finding our pilot households had worse indoor air quality in the absence of wildfires and when compared to the average outdoor air quality during the historic 2020 wildfire season.
Future Activities:
In the next reporting period, we plan on continuing the full intervention study (Phase 3) including (1) intervention deployment and (2) intervention evaluation.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 5 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
air sensor, particulate matter, exposure, personal monitoring, health effects, risk communication, community engagement, behavior change, native language messagingProgress 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.