The Desert Research Institute (DRI) and Northern Nevada Public Health are recruiting Washoe County community members for a research project examining heat and air quality impacts on household health.
The research seeks to examine how heat and wildfire smoke impact indoor temperature, air quality, and well-being.
By partnering with community members to gather temperature, air quality, and basic health information, the research will help scientists better understand how to help the public protect themselves from the health impacts of heat and wildfire smoke.
Kristin Vandermolen, the Assistant Research Professor at DRI, says, "The area is unique in that we tend to get high heat in the summer months; particularly later in the summer, we tend to get a lot of wildfire smoke transport, particularly from neighboring states. And a lot of households in Washoe County don't have central air conditioning, which is the primary tool in limiting exposure to heat and wildfire smoke."
They say they are particularly interested in households that don't have central air conditioning.
Researchers from DRI will be visiting households over five times in a 12-month period, the majority of the visits being in the summer, and at the end they give the data they found to the household for their home.
Vandermolen explains, "Especially with respect to heat in Nevada, we do see greater numbers of reported incidents of heat-related illness and heat-related deaths. And then when it comes to wildfire smoke, we do know anecdotally from a lot that we hear from residents or that we experience ourselves that people are increasingly impacted when we get long-duration wildfire smoke events."
If you would like to learn more about the project or sign up to be a part of it, you can check out the DRI's website.
