Clouded-Based Wearable and Stationary Sensors for Monitoring Air Pollution Exposure in Pediatric Asthma Research

Abstract

Asthma is a common chronic disease of the airways, which affects 26 million people and costs $56 billion each year in the US alone [1]. In particular, 7 million children suffer from asthma which causes more than 10 million lost school days due to asthma exacerbations. Although triggers to pediatric asthma exacerbations are well recognized such as airway infections, allergens, tobacco smoke, air pollution, and exercises, how the interactions between the environmental factors and the patients’ biological and behavioral characteristics determine the susceptibility to and timing of such events is not well understood. One significant barrier to the causal understanding is the lack of objective measures on exposure metrics correlated with patient physiological responses and activities. Therefore, there is a significant unmet need to develop integrated sensor monitoring systems that can be deployed in a child’s daily life to collect real-life exposure, context and health data for epidemiological studies of asthma.As part of the NIH PRISMS program, we have developed a wearable aldehyde sensor and a stationary Ozone and NO2 monitor for pediatric asthma epidemiological research. The stationary sensor also includes a single-board computer with WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) capabilities, which can function as a gateway to a cloud-based informatics system for data storage, management and analytics. Here we will describe the design, manufacture, test, calibration and deployment of these sensors in a pilot clinical study. The sensor performances in the lab including sensitivity, dynamic range, linearity, drift, and temperature and humidity dependence will be presented. Integration of the sensors with a cloud-based PRISMS informatics system through the gateway will also be presented. Future work and potential applications to other diseases affected by environmental exposure will be discussed.[1] CDC. Asthma Facts — CDC’s National Asthma Control Program Grantees. 2013.