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Scientists from the University of Colorado Anschutz are part of a multidisciplinary team that was recently awarded up to $39 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop innovative solutions to improve indoor air quality. Led by industry partner Poppy Health Inc., the team will use the funds to harness smart building technology to reduce disease through cleaner indoor air.
ARPA-H, a federal research funding agency, aims to fill the knowledge gap around bioaerosols through the Building Resilient Environments for Air and Total Health (BREATHE) program. The initiative is deploying experts nationwide, including from CU Anschutz, to develop new systems that monitor changes in indoor air quality and forecast potential health threats.
The CU Anschutz researchers working on the project include Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, pulmonary physician and epidemiologist, and Thomas Jaenisch, MD, PhD, infectious disease epidemiologist, both at the Colorado School of Public Health.
Air quality in classrooms
Jaenisch’s work has long been focused on improving the air quality in Colorado classrooms but will now expand to a nationwide field trial with the funds from ARPA-H’s BREATHE program.
Breaking down BREATHE
The BREATHE Strategic Control of bioAerosols in Learning Environments (SCALE) project aims to deliver clean air where it’s needed to reduce infectious aerosol exposures before they occur. Its core components are:
- Real-time biosensing of long-term and acute threats carried in the air – allergens, mold, bacteria and viruses – using an amplification-free genetic sensor that sends a tiny electrical signal when it recognizes a target microbe in the air.
- Intelligent risk-controller software platform that quantifies how biological air pollutants impact human health and translates them to building actions. The BREATHE team model extends and reimagines the ASHRAE 241 Standard model as a real-time decision engine, designed for a library of specific biological agents. ASHRAE 241 is an industry standard of air quality set by the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers.
Smart building automation to measure and adjust clean air flow, filtration and air cleaning to precisely and dynamically deliver clean air where it’s needed to reduce exposures before they occur.
“We want to investigate and define what constitutes safe air quality, and then make schools safer so that, in the event of the next pandemic, we don’t have to close schools again,” Jaenisch said. The school closures, followed by high absenteeism (the Colorado Department of Education reported that nearly one-third of K-12 students were “chronically absent” in 2021-2022), contribute to diminished student academic performance and mental health.
To measure the health outcomes of less-than-optimal air quality, CU researchers are focused on children missing school due to illness. “It gets a lot more specific when you can talk about respiratory illness causing absenteeism as opposed to measuring all-cause absenteeism,” Jaenisch said.
As part of the project, the team will gather data from at least 60-80 schools across four different climate zones in the United States.
Preventative measures
Poppy Health, Inc., an indoor environmental health and energy technology company, is the prime contractor on the team leading this the preventative health project.
Smart building systems are now common in workplaces and schools, but their flexibility is geared mostly toward comfort and energy efficiency. The team aims to develop and deploy the first real-time, building-integrated system to detect and reduce exposure to indoor infectious aerosols such as allergens, bacteria and viruses. These bioaerosols and airborne particles, which also find their way indoors, contribute to asthma as well as dangerous respiratory infections such as influenza and pneumonia.
Previously, Jaenisch and CU Boulder’s Mark Hernandez have collaborated on epidemiology and engineering studies aimed at protecting children’s health. A project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluated the impact of portable air cleaners on Colorado classrooms at the elementary level. In 2021, a pilot study in 20 elementary schools in Denver Public Schools showed a marked reduction in respirable airborne particles when portable air cleaners were placed in classrooms.
That finding underscores the principle that “clean air is medicine” – effectively, in the case of schools, protecting children and staff from getting sick indoors.
Strengthening the evidence base
Samet has extensively studied the health risks of indoor pollutants such as secondhand smoke and radon as well as outdoor pollutants, including ozone and wildfire smoke particles.
As part of their BREATHE-funded project, experts on the Poppy-led team will “reimagine” the ASHRAE 241 – an industry standard of air quality set by the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers – as a real-time decision engine, designed to respond to specific biological agents.
“What’s been lacking for achieving healthy indoor air is a good, strong evidence base,” Samet said. “That’s what our project is intended to do in two ways. The idea is to, firstly, develop sensors to tell us what’s in the indoor air and how much, which we don’t currently have, and secondly, to use the sensor information to operate buildings to reduce risk.”
In basic terms, he said, the goal is to develop a real-time and responsive management system for indoor air that’s tied to continuous measurements.
“This is a huge initiative,” Samet said. “If successful, it’s going to change how we think about indoor air.”
This research was, in part, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States government.
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