Brown University collaborates with local students to examine environmental comfort in state
JANS – Starting this February, the Community Noise Lab (CNL) at the Brown University School of Public Health will train students across Mississippi to measure environmental comfort in their communities. CNL defines environmental comfort as “the human experience of feeling physically and mentally good within a given community.” According to Dr. Erica Walker, a Jackson, Mississippi, native and founder of the Environmental Comfort Project, “Environmental comfort is influenced by a variety of factors including temperature, humidity, air quality, light, noise, and even psychological aspects like a sense of control one has in their community.”
With this environmental comfort project, students will be trained to collect air quality, noise, and light pollution measurements within an identified community, using research-grade equipment. Simultaneously, CNL has released an environmental comfort survey open to all residents across the state.
The idea is for students to pair their objective measures of air, light, and noise with the survey’s subjective measures to create an environmental comfort index. The end goal is to visualize and examine the environmental comfort index across Mississippi. Community Noise Lab plans to have a preliminary analysis and map up for feedback by the end of this upcoming summer.
According to Dr. Walker, questions of interest for CNL are: Where is environmental comfort in Mississippi at its best? Where is it at its worst? What factors promote environmental comfort? What factors negatively impact it?
Ultimately, as an environmental health laboratory, Dr. Walker and her team are interested in understanding how environmental comfort impacts the health and well-being of Mississippi residents.
Student projects include examining environmental comfort across the city of Jackson and in communities impacted by incoming data centers, industrial manufacturing, and residents living near major highways.
If you are interested in having environmental comfort measured in your community, please reach out to Dr. Erica Walker at erica_walker@brown.edu. If you are interested in taking the environmental comfort survey, you can scan the QR code in the flyer.
