The relationship between deprivation, indoor air quality and health in homes in Leicestershire.

Supervisors:

• Professor Anna Hansell ah618@le.ac.uk
• Dr Rebecca Cordell
• Dr Thiphanie Riveron

Project description:

The project addresses the theme of community empowerment and knowledge sharing. It aims to improve our knowledge on the impact of deprivation on housing, especially indoor pollution, and respiratory diseases and empower communities from deprived areas of Leicestershire. 
Limited knowledge is available on indoor air pollution in deprived communities, even after the cases of Ella Adoo Kissi-Debrah and Awaab Ishak. Still, more deprived communities are more likely to live in areas of high outdoor pollution and have worse respiratory disease outcomes. 
The student will set up an epidemiological case-control study to characterise indoor pollution in deprived areas of Leicestershire and investigate potential relationships with respiratory health. A questionnaire, co-created with a Public Advisory Group which will support the student during the PhD, will be used to assess respiratory health of the household occupants. The student will engage with communities in Leicestershire to share knowledge about indoor pollution and its impact on human health. Through interactive workshops with adults, the student will aim to strengthen community empowerment, so participants can take practical action to reduce indoor pollution in their homes and live-in healthy environments. With workshops in schools and through fun activities, the student will help pupils turn knowledge into action. 

Objective 1: Empower communities living in deprived areas of Leicestershire by organising community-oriented meetings and workshops in schools. These events will be an opportunity to share knowledge with communities of different ages about indoor pollution and its impact on human health, and to work with them to demonstrate simple intervention steps (e.g. opening windows, using an extractor fan) that to can do by themselves to improve their indoor environment. 

Objective 2: Characterise indoor pollution over a week in 50 homes, including particulates, chemicals and moulds, using established methods. 25 homes from higher deprived areas (cases) will be recruited, as well as 25 homes from lower deprived areas (controls). The case and control homes will be in the same city. Indoor pollution will be measured over a week in dwellings, and include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and mould. VOCs will be identified and quantified by using two-dimensional gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. PM2.5 will be quantified using the gravimetric technique, while mould will be quantified using a combination of microscopy and molecular methods. The protocol that the student will use has been validated in previous studies to ensure high-quality data is collected with minimal disturbance to study participants.   

Objective 3: Investigate whether living in areas of higher deprivation worsens environmental exposures and health inequalities, by using the dataset collected for Objective 2 and using a health questionnaire. The questionnaire will determine if any members of the household have a respiratory disease (e.g. asthma) and how many times they have had a bacterial and/or viral infection in the past 12 months. In addition to using the English Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), the student will evaluate deprivation and inequalities by using a questionnaire (e.g. EPICES score) and collect occupational information.