Monitoring Particulate, PAH, Allergen and Microbial Exposures in Asthmatic Kids

摘要

The overall goal of the PRISMS Program is to develop sensor-based measurement and informatics platforms of environmental, physiological, and behavioral factors for epidemiological studies of asthma, and eventually other chronic diseases, in the pediatric population. As part of PRIMSs, Columbia and AethLabs are developing and evaluating a modular array of miniaturized air monitors for use as personal and residential sensors for testing hypotheses on asthma development and asthma exacerbation. Our overall approach is to develop flexible monitors that can be used for different study designs and provide archive samples that can be stored for future hypothesis testing. Our real-time monitors measure spatial and temporal variations of potential acute asthma stressors (black carbon, UV-active particulate matter from sources such as environmental tobacco smoke, wood smoke or incense, particle reactive PAHs, relative humidity and temperature). The residential monitor can also integrate 3rd party commercial sensors for estimating fine and coarse particulate matter mass. In addition, we have built an archive monitor prototype that can collect two integrated samples that are either spatially- or time- resolved, and can be archived for subsequent lab analysis. Tri-axial accelerometer and GPS chips are integrated into our personal monitors allowing determinations of location, wearing compliance and activity related parameters. Data is transmitted to the PRISMs platform for storage and analytics. Progress has been made in developing a suite of asthma-related exposure measurements for archived integrated samples including PM2.5 and PM10 mass, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, and particulate-bound elements. We are validating filters for collecting integrated samples for analyses of airborne allergens (mouse, dust mite and cockroach) and PCR based microbial assays; preliminary results shows that the 2 hour of subway sampling provided enough mass for these bioassays.