CEE Professors Tina Chow and Tom Kirchstetter are collaborating on a new EPA grant led by principal investigator Neeta Thakur at UCSF to improve estimates of health impacts from wildfire smoke. This project addresses the critical need to understand the effects of recurrent and prolonged wildfire smoke exposure on health and how this health risk is distributed across underserved communities.
Researchers will use a combination of air infiltration models using housing attributes and meteorological data as inputs combined with new observational studies of infiltration factors of PM2.5 to estimate smoke infiltration. The data compiled from this project will be used to codevelop implementation strategies to increase the uptake of acceptable community-relevant mitigation interventions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced over $5 million in grant funding to four California institutions for community-based research. The projects examine how climate change may intensify unfavorable environmental conditions affecting vulnerable populations in underserved communities. Check out the EPA press release to learn more.