NIH, EPA Launch Competition for Personal Air Pollution and Health Sensors

Signs of life at the NIH from www.nih.gov.

A competition to create a personal sensor system that measures air pollution and a persons physiological response to it will offer cash awards to finalists, federal officials announced today. The goal is to help researchers, communities, and physicians better understand the connection between air quality and health.

The My Air, My Health Challenge is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Details of the competition, developed in conjunction with crowdsourcing firm InnoCentive, are available here.

Competitors will propose designs for sensors that can be easily worn or carried. In addition to gathering data on chemical and/or particulate air pollutants, these sensors will measure health parameters, such as heart rate and breathing. The proposals should also address how to make a wide array of collected data available to a broad spectrum of researchers, public health institutions, and other interested parties.

Read more about the personal air pollution sensor challenge.