USC Environmental Health Centers

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May 2, 2019

Dr. Rima Habre contributes to international panel on performance standards for low-cost air pollution sensors

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Rima Habre holds an ultrafine particle monitor monitor while a plane flies overhead. Photo courtesy of Something in the Air documentary.

In June 2018, USC Environmental Health Centers exposure assessment expert Rima Habre, ScD, contributed to a two-day workshop hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Habre discussed essential features, design recommendations and performance targets specifically for wearable personal PM2.5 deployed in health research studies to assess personal exposures and investigate relationships with health outcomes in population studies.

Dr. Habre’s presentation discussed her work in the UCLA/USC Los Angeles PRISMS center led by Dr. Alex Bui (UCLA Medical Imaging Informatics) where researchers are developing a multi-sensor informatics platform to enable mHealth studies of pediatric asthma. The platform, called BREATHE (Biomedical REAl-Time Health Evaluation for Pediatric Asthma) allows researchers to monitor environmental exposures, behaviors, medications and symptoms using Bluetooth-enabled wearable sensors in real-time and in context, to ultimately help predict and prevent asthma attacks in children. Dr. Habre’s presentation focused on ‘real-life compatibility’ design and performance needs for low-cost PM2.5 sensors deployed as part of an informatics ecosystem, including flexible wear options, battery life, communication needs, but also calibration well-suited for mobile deployments on humans moving in and across microenvironments in daily life.

Proceedings from the meeting that focused on performance targets for low cost sensors that measure fine particulate matter and ozone, are summarized in a research paper of which Habre is a co-author, published in April 2019 in the Atmospheric Environment journal.

Williams, R., Duvall, R., Kilaru, V., Hagler, G., Hassinger, L., Benedict, K., Habre, R. … Ning, Z. (2019). Deliberating performance targets workshop: Potential paths for emerging PM2.5 and O3 air sensor progress. Atmospheric Environment: X2, 100031. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AEAOA.2019.100031

For more
information about the workshop, including links to all presentations, click here.

Learn more about Dr. Habre’s recent research here.

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