Household surveys and low-cost measurement of indoor air pollution in the Dominican Republic

摘要

The World Health Organization estimates that 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using biomass, and that up to 4 million deaths per year are directly attributable to household air pollution resulting from biomass combustion. Fundamental to any effort undertaken to address these problems is the development of affordable, reliable, and robust devices for measuring air pollution in indoor environments. Mercer University's version of the "DustDuino" is a prototype instrument for measuring airborne particulate that has been developed through a collaboration among students and faculty in the School of Engineering's departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Environmental and Civil Engineering (ECV). The DustDuino consists primarily of a dust sensor (Plantower #7003) that measures particulate (PM_(2.5) and PM_(10)) using infrared light and a photodiode, and an Arduino Uno microcontroller. The total cost to construct a DustDuino is $100-150, which makes it nearly ideal for field work in low resource communities. From 16 May - 6 June 2018, DustDuino devices were deployed in El Cercado, Dominican Republic as part of a Mercer on Mission service-learning project focusing on water, air, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sustainability. Specifically, indoor air quality (IAQ) surveys were administered in 147 homes spread over 9 different communities surrounding El Cercado. The main purpose of the survey was to better understand the risks local families face from cooking indoors using biomass. In virtually all of the homes (145 of 147), residents prepared their meals indoors by burning wood in 3-stone fires. Preliminary results suggest that indoor concentrations of PM_(2.5) and PM_(10) were 100-200 times higher than the USEPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards. At these levels, even short-duration exposures (less than 5-10 minutes per day) significantly increase the risks of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and lung cancer.