'Growing Impact' Focuses on Western Pennsylvania Air Quality, Health

The latest episode of the "Growing Impact" podcast features a project focused on air quality and health concerns in western Pennsylvania. Three of the team members, Natasha Miles, Jenn Baka and Lisa Iulo, discussed their team’s project, titled “Community Engagement and Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Direct Air Quality Research at Industrial Sites Near Pittsburgh,” which is investigating how the combination of industrial polluters and complex terrain can impact communities.

“The goal of this project is to identify community needs and determine future research projects focused on air toxics, which can impact human health,” Miles said. “In the Pittsburgh area, we're focusing on using existing measurements of fine-scale particulate matter — usually abbreviated PM2.5 — which are extremely small particles a fraction of the width of a hair. They can get deeper into your lungs and cause health issues.”

Through this project, the team is working closely with communities to understand their concerns about the region’s air quality, which is reported to be some of the worst in the country, according to Miles. The project is also investigating how air quality is impacted by the region’s topography, which includes deep valleys where pollutants can accumulate and get trapped.

“When we were assembling the team, we wanted people who had experienced doing community engagement as well as experience with research on indoor and outdoor environments,” Baka said. “In the community, you want to look at everybody who impacts air quality and everybody who is impacted by air quality — the polluters, the regulators and the people who live in those communities.”

The team’s community engagement is helping them refine existing questions that they had going into this research project.

“Our work with the community has helped us identify new questions related to data on air quality,” Iulo said. “Because of the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of the project, we're able to respond to research needs that are identified through the engagement and gain feedback on research findings and future needs and activities.”

Growing Impact is a podcast by the Institutes of Energy and the Environment. It features Penn State researchers who have been awarded IEE seed grants and discusses their foundational work as they further their projects. The podcast is available on multiple platforms, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Spotify.