Near-Highway Pollution: From Research to Action

September 14, 2016 

A $2.26 million, 5-year grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences to Tufts University will fund the next phase of work for the Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health (CAFEH).  

CAFEH is a series of community-based participatory research projects that have partnered with local communities to learn about and address pollution from highways and busy roadways.   The overarching aim of the new grant is to engage communities in implementing in-building air filtration in new and retrofitted housing and schools as a strategy to reduce exposure to airborne ultrafine particles.  The project will include environmental health studies that test whether better filtration in building ventilation systems has health benefits; community-level health impact assessments to inform the communities about traffic pollution impacts; a community planning process in Boston Chinatown and East Somerville to influence developers and designers of new or retrofitted housing and school buildings so that they are more protective from traffic-related pollution; and an evaluation of the community planning processes. 

The principal investigators for the study are Doug Brugge, PhD, MS, of the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine (PHCM) at Tufts University School of Medicine and Ellin Reisner, PhD, MSW of the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership (STEP).  Drs. Brugge and Reisner have worked together for a decade on CAFEH-related projects. Additional investigators include: John Durant, PhD, of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Tufts University School of Engineering; Wig Zamore of STEP; Lydia Lowe of the Chinese Progressive Association; Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi, MEd, and Misha Eliasziw, PhD, of PHCM; Linda Martinez, PhD, of the School of Social Work at Boston University; and Barry Keppard, AICP of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. 

For information, please contact Doug Brugge at dougbrugge@gmail.com.