"Climate, without a doubt, has a detrimental impact on human health when there's air pollution," says Kumar. "Greater emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels in the presence of high temperatures and sunlight increase concentrations of ozone, an inflammatory gas. And that's been linked with asthma, stroke, and cardiopulmonary disease."
Almost a quarter of all disease is caused by environmental exposures that can be prevented. "While we have made great strides in characterizing personalized genotypes and phenotypes, we lack the ability to monitor personal environmental exposure," says Kumar.
And that's precisely why Kumar, Sung Jin Kim, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, and colleagues developed UM PRECISE (Personal Real-time Environmental Exposure using Cellphone Integrated Sensors). Using multiple optical sensors, the device measures levels of particulate matter, records meteorological conditions, and uploads that data to the Internet via WiFi, giving researchers, health care professionals, and patients a way to monitor the acute effects of air pollution in real time.
"The objective," explains Kumar, "is to engage targeted patients in exposure avoidance and preventive behavior."
PRECISE has undergone three phases of testing, yielding promising results, and two of the sensors will soon be deployed on UM's Coral Gables and Virginia Key campuses.
Using satellite data and with the assistance of UM's Center for Computational Science, he also tracks air pollution rates in Delhi and posts the data on a website, which allows the public and policymakers to access daily air pollution estimates anywhere in and around Delhi.
Kumar is planning to launch similar websites that track air pollution rates in Cleveland, Ohio, where smog has become a major public health concern, and Texas, where fracking—a technique in which chemicals are injected deep underground to break up rocks surrounding oil and gas deposits—has led to serious concerns about the environment and health.
Kumar notes that while stringent legislation has helped to reduce air pollution in the U.S., health disorders such as asthma, allergies, and other respiratory disorders caused by poor air quality have not declined at the same pace, but have rather increased. The in-home use of aerosol cans and certain cleaning products are to blame, he says.
"Two out three homes in Miami have mold," says Kumar, "but there are no laws to regulate for that, except for occupational settings."
- Robert C. Jones Jr. / UM News