Community Noise Lab at Brown U. releases statewide climate reports
JANS – Researchers at the Community Noise Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health have just released their second set of Air and Noise Quality Quarterly Reports for several communities across Mississippi and Alabama. This batch of reports is for the cities of Gloster, Quitman, Pascagoula, Jackson, Fulton, and Epes (Alabama). According to Erica D. Walker, MSc, ScD, founder of the Community Noise Lab and an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Brown, these reports have been significantly improved from the previous “one-pagers.”
Currently, Community Noise Lab is measuring air and noise quality at 11 rotating sites around Mississippi and Alabama. These stations gather PM2.5, volatile organic compounds, Ozone, H2S, black carbon, PAHs, noise, and weather data at one-minute intervals, resulting in up to 15,000 data points per day for each site. These reports synthesize all of the real-time data collected from these stations into a brief report.
“After listening to community feedback, we have added a significant amount of information to our reports, including meteorological conditions, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines, key findings, and information on who we are and what we do,” says Walker.
Reports will also now compare air quality and meteorological conditions from the previous quarter to the current quarter. “It is important for us to provide these comparisons to the communities we serve,” says Sage Lefebvre, a Research Assistant at Community Noise Lab and the creator of the community air quality reports. “Communities are now able to see how their air quality has changed over the past several months, and how conditions like temperature or humidity may relate.”
Dr. Walker believes that this data is an excellent addition to the community conversations. Our purpose is to fill in the gaps and provide objective data to the existing discussion. Environmental issues are solved not by anecdotes alone, says Dr. Walker. “We have to support community concerns with facts.”
Coming soon, Community Noise Lab will be releasing a data dashboard and an activity book on Air Pollution for both children and adults.
You can download reports from Community Noise Lab’s website (communitynoiselab.org) or by sending an email to Dr. Walker at erica_walker@brown.edu. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have provided funding for this project.
