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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2013

Future Extreme Heat Scenarios to Enable the Assessment of Climate Impacts on Public Health over the Coterminous U.S.

In the United States, extreme heat is the most deadly weather-related hazard. In the face of a warming climate and urbanization, which contributes to local-scale urban heat islands, it is very likely that extreme heat events (EHEs) will become more common and more severe in the U.S. This research seeks to provide historical and future measures of climate-driven extreme heat events to enable assessments of the impacts of heat on public health over the coterminous U.S. We use atmospheric temperature and humidity information from meteorological reanalysis and from Global Climate Models (GCMs) to provide data on past and future heat events. The focus of research is on providing assessments of the magnitude, frequency and geographic distribution of extreme heat in the U.S. to facilitate public health studies. In our approach, long-term climate change is captured with GCM outputs, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of short-term extremes are represented by the reanalysis data. Two future time horizons for 2040 and 2090 are compared to the recent past period of 1981- 2000. We characterize regional-scale temperature and humidity conditions using GCM outputs for two climate change scenarios (A2 and A1B) defined in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). For each future period, 20 years of multi-model GCM outputs are analyzed to develop a 'heat stress climatology' based on statistics of extreme heat indicators. Differences between the two future and the past period are used to define temperature and humidity changes on a monthly time scale and regional spatial scale. These changes are combined with the historical meteorological data, which is hourly and at a spatial scale (12 km), to create future climate realizations. From these realizations, we compute the daily heat stress measures and related spatially-specific climatological fields, such as the mean annual number of days above certain thresholds of maximum and minimum air temperatures, heat indices and a new heat stress variable developed as part of this research that gives an integrated measure of heat stress (and relief) over the course of a day. Comparisons are made between projected (2040 and 2090) and past (1990) heat stress statistics. Outputs are aggregated to the county level, which is a popular scale of analysis for public health interests. County-level statistics are made available to public health researchers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Wideranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) system. This addition of heat stress measures to CDC WONDER allows decision and policy makers to assess the impact of alternative approaches to optimize the public health response to EHEs. Through CDC WONDER, users are able to spatially and temporally query public health and heat-related data sets and create county-level maps and statistical charts of such data across the coterminous U.S

Quattrochi, Dale A.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Comparison of Remote Sensing and Fixed-Site Monitoring Approaches for Examining Air Pollution and Health in a National Study Population

Satellite remote sensing (RS) has emerged as a cutting edge approach for estimating ground level ambient air pollution. Previous studies have reported a high correlation between ground level PM2.5 and NO2 estimated by RS and measurements collected at regulatory monitoring sites. The current study examined associations between air pollution and adverse respiratory and allergic health outcomes using multi-year averages of NO2 and PM2.5 from RS and from regulatory monitoring. RS estimates were derived using satellite measurements from OMI, MODIS, and MISR instruments. Regulatory monitoring data were obtained from Canada's National Air Pollution Surveillance Network. Self-reported prevalence of doctor-diagnosed asthma, current asthma, allergies, and chronic bronchitis were obtained from the Canadian Community Health Survey (a national sample of individuals 12 years of age and older). Multi-year ambient pollutant averages were assigned to each study participant based on their six digit postal code at the time of health survey, and were used as a marker for long-term exposure to air pollution. RS derived estimates of NO2 and PM2.5 were associated with 6e10% increases in respiratory and allergic health outcomes per interquartile range (3.97 mg m3 for PM2.5 and 1.03 ppb for NO2) among adults (aged 20e64) in the national study population. Risk estimates for air pollution and respiratory/ allergic health outcomes based on RS were similar to risk estimates based on regulatory monitoring for areas where regulatory monitoring data were available (within 40 km of a regulatory monitoring station). RS derived estimates of air pollution were also associated with adverse health outcomes among participants residing outside the catchment area of the regulatory monitoring network (p < 0.05).

validation↗
NASA NTRS2015

NASA Earth Observation Systems and Applications for Health and Air Quality

There is a growing body of evidence that the environment can affect human health in ways that are both complex and global in scope. To address some of these complexities, NASA maintains a diverse constellation of Earth observing research satellites, and sponsors research in developing satellite data applications across a wide spectrum of areas. These include environmental health; infectious disease; air quality standards, policies, and regulations; and the impact of climate change on health and air quality in a number of interrelated efforts. The Health and Air Quality Applications fosters the use of observations, modeling systems, forecast development, application integration, and the research to operations transition process to address environmental health effects. NASA has been a primary partner with Federal operational agencies over the past nine years in these areas. This talk presents the background of the Health and Air Quality Applications program, recent accomplishments, and a plan for the future.

Omar, Ali H.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Risk of Adverse Health Outcomes and Decrements in Performance Due to In-flight Medical Conditions

The drive to undertake long-duration space exploration missions at greater distances from Earth gives rise to many challenges concerning human performance under extreme conditions. At NASA, the Human Research Program (HRP) has been established to investigate the specific risks to astronaut health and performance presented by space exploration, in addition to developing necessary countermeasures and technology to reduce risk and facilitate safer, more productive missions in space (NASA Human Research Program 2009). The HRP is divided into five subsections, covering behavioral health, space radiation, habitability, and other areas of interest. Within this structure is the ExMC Element, whose research contributes to the overall development of new technologies to overcome the challenges of expanding human exploration and habitation of space. The risk statement provided by the HRP to the ExMC Element states: "Given that medical conditions/events will occur during human spaceflight missions, there is a possibility of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance in mission and for long term health" (NASA Human Research Program 2016). Within this risk context, the Exploration Medical Capabilities (ExMC) Element is specifically concerned with establishing evidenced-based methods of monitoring and maintaining astronaut health. Essential to completing this task is the advancement in techniques that identify, prevent, and treat any health threats that may occur during space missions. The ultimate goal of the ExMC Element is to develop and demonstrate a pathway for medical system integration into vehicle and mission design to mitigate the risk of medical issues. Integral to this effort is inclusion of an evidence-based medical and data handling system appropriate for long-duration, exploration-class missions. This requires a clear Concept of Operations, quantitative risk metrics or other tools to address changing risk throughout a mission, and system scoping and system engineering. Because of the novel nature of the risks involved in exploration missions, new and complex ethical challenges are likely to be encountered. This document describes the relevant background and evidence that informs the development of an exploration medical system.

Antonsen,Erik↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Health and Air Quality Applications

There is a growing body of evidence that the environment can affect human health in ways that are both complex and global in scope. To address some of these complexities, NASA maintains a diverse constellation of Earth observing research satellites, and sponsors research in developing satellite data applications across a wide spectrum of areas. These include environmental health; infectious disease; air quality standards, policies, and regulations; and the impact of climate change on health and air quality in a number of interrelated efforts. The Health and Air Quality Applications fosters the use of observations, modeling systems, forecast development, application integration, and the research to operations transition process to address environmental health effects. NASA has been a primary partner with Federal operational agencies over the past nine years in these areas. This talk presents the background of the Health and Air Quality Applications program, recent accomplishments, and a plan for the future.

Air Quality Remote Sensing↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Monitoring Trends in Air Quality During a Drought: Case Study to Improve Public Health Response to Drought Threats

Drought has been an area of distinct concern in the Pacific Northwest since the mid-2010s. Recent studies have documented a correlation between air quality and drought in the United States, which is often observed in increased aerosols including airborne particulate matter (PM). This study partnered with the Oregon Health Authority and Washington State Department of Health to evaluate trends in air quality in the Pacific Northwest during the evolution of drought conditions using aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations collected by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. These satellite data were analyzed in conjunction with ground-based PM2.5 and PM10 data sourced from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality System’s network of ground-based monitors and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index drought index. Based on recommendations by local health departments, this study examined air quality trends between 2015 and 2022 in 12 counties within Oregon and Washington that reflected diversity in population density, drought exposure, rural and urban status, and data availability from EPA AQS monitors. The findings from this study provided supplemental information to the ongoing efforts by community health stakeholders to study the public health impacts of drought and support public health responses to future drought events.

Taylor West↗
DOE OSTI2020

Anomaly Detection in Sequential Health Care Data using Higher-Order Network Representation

The ever-increasing use of information technology (IT) in health care presents new challenges to patient care. Information errors arising from the use of Health IT and their implications on care delivery and patient outcomes have been widely reported. Information errors can lead to changes in clinical decisions, care processes, and care outcomes, among others. An altered care process, for example, could interrupt the sequence of care, which could lead to changes in care decisions and/or changes in care outcomes. We define interruptions in the care process as anomalies in the care sequence. In this paper, we present a new approach based on the higher-order network (HON) representation to detect anomalies in sequential health care data using electronic health records. The results show that there are higher-order dependencies in health care data; and that the use of HON representation is more effective than the first-order network representation for detecting anomalies in sequential health care data.

Niu, Haoran↗
DOE OSTI2020

Integration of Data Analytics with Plant System Health Program

This report summarizes the R&D activities of the Plant Health Management (PHM) project during fiscal year 2020 (FY20). This project focuses on the development of methods that integrate component health data and propagate such information at the system level to evaluate system sources of risk. This project development lives in cooperation with the Risk Informed Asset Management (RIAM) project. The RIAM project, in fact, uses the reliability models and data generated by the PHM project to optimize plant operations (e.g., maintenance/replacement schedule, optimal maintenance posture). This year’s activities for the PHM project focused mainly on the development of two classes of models. The first one includes a series of component reliability models which include aging, testing and maintenance. The second class includes a series of system reliability models which focus on the secondary side of exiting U.S. reactors. These models are based on fault tree logic structures such that they can be used by existing plant PRA software. We also started to focus on the management of health data and we tackled this issue in two directions. The first one focuses on the integration of monitor data with simulation models to assess component health. This approach is moving from a classical data based to a model+data based approach with the goal of improving higher component health information. The second direction focuses on linking equipment reliability data (e.g., maintenance/failure reports, component monitoring data) directly to system reliability models using a safety margin based language rather than a probability based language. The main advantage of a safety margin based language is that it can provide to system engineers more tangible information on system/component health and how it propagates to the system level.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Estimating the Acute Health Impacts of Fire-Originated PM 2.5 Exposure During the 2017 California Wildfires: Sensitivity to Choices of Inputs

Exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions. Health impact assessments, used to inform decision-making processes, characterize the health impacts of environmental exposures by combining preexisting epidemiological concentration–response functions (CRFs) with estimates of exposure. These two key inputs influence the magnitude and uncertainty of the health impacts estimated, but for wildfire-related impact assessments the extent of their impact is largely unknown. We first estimated the number of respiratory, cardiovascular, and asthma hospital admissions attributable to fire-originated PM 2.5 exposure in central California during the October 2017 wildfires, using Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainty with respect to the exposure and epidemiological inputs. We next conducted sensitivity analyses, comparing four estimates of fire-originated PM 2.5 and two CRFs, wildfire and nonwildfire specific, to understand their impact on the estimation of excess admissions and sources of uncertainty. We estimate the fires accounted for an excess 240 (95% CI: 114, 404) respiratory, 68 (95% CI: -10, 159) cardiovascular, and 45 (95% CI: 18, 81) asthma hospital admissions, with 56% of admissions occurring in the Bay Area. Although differences between impact assessment methods are not statistically significant, the admissions estimates' magnitude is particularly sensitive to the CRF specified while the uncertainty is most sensitive to estimates of fire-originated PM 2.5 . Not accounting for the exposure surface's uncertainty leads to an underestimation of the uncertainty of the health impacts estimated. Employing context-specific CRFs and using accurate exposure estimates that combine multiple data sets generates more certain estimates of the acute health impacts of wildfires.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Project Earthrise: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of in VIVO Planetary Health

The “Earthrise” photograph, taken on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, became one of the most significant images of the 20th Century. It triggered a profound shift in environmental awareness and the potential for human unity—inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. Taking inspiration from these events 50 years later, we initiated Project Earthrise at our 2020 annual conference of inVIVO Planetary Health. This builds on the emergent concept of planetary health, which provides a shared narrative to integrate rich and diverse approaches from all aspects of society towards shared solutions to global challenges. The acute catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn greater attention to many other interconnected global health, environmental, social, spiritual, and economic problems that have been underappreciated or neglected for decades. This is accelerating opportunities for greater collaborative action, as many groups now focus on the necessity of a “Great Transition”. While ambitious integrative efforts have never been more important, it is imperative to apply these with mutualistic value systems as a compass, as we seek to make wiser choices. Project Earthrise is our contribution to this important process. This underscores the imperative for creative ecological solutions to challenges in all systems, on all scales with advancing global urbanization in the digital age—for personal, environmental, economic and societal health alike. At the same time, our agenda seeks to equally consider our social and spiritual ecology as it does natural ecology. Revisiting the inspiration of “Earthrise”, we welcome diverse perspectives from across all dimensions of the arts and the sciences, to explore novel solutions and new normative values. Building on academic rigor, we seek to place greater value on imagination, kindness and mutualism as we address our greatest challenges, for the health of people, places and planet.

interdependence↗
NASA NTRS2000

Education, outreach and the future of remote sensing in human health

The human health community has been slow to adopt remote sensing technology for research, surveillance, or control activities. This chapter presents a brief history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's experiences in the use of remotely sensed data for health applications, and explores some of the obstacles, both real and perceived, that have slowed the transfer of this technology to the health community. These obstacles include the lack of awareness, which must be overcome through outreach and proper training in remote sensing, and inadequate spatial, spectral and temporal data resolutions, which are being addressed as new sensor systems are launched and currently overlooked (and underutilized) sensors are newly discovered by the health community. A basic training outline is presented, along with general considerations for selecting training candidates. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some current and future sensors that show promise for health applications.

Review, Tutorial↗
DOE OSTI2020

Association of residential energy efficiency retrofits with indoor environmental quality, comfort, and health: A review of empirical data

This paper reviews empirical data from evaluations of the influence of residential energy efficiency retrofits on indoor environmental quality conditions and self-reported thermal comfort and health. The data were extracted from 36 studies described in 44 papers plus two reports. Nearly all reviewed studies were performed in Europe or United States. Most studies evaluated retrofits of homes with low-income occupants. Indoor radon and formaldehyde concentrations tended to increase after retrofits that did not add whole-house mechanical ventilation. Study-average indoor concentrations of nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds other than formaldehyde increased and decreased with approximately equal frequency. Average indoor temperatures during winter typically increased after retrofits, usually by less than 1.5 °C. Dampness and mold, usually based on occupant's reports, almost always decreased after retrofits. Subjectively reported thermal comfort, thermal discomfort, non-asthma respiratory symptoms, general health, and mental health nearly always improved after retrofits. For asthma symptoms, the evidence of improvement slightly outweighed the evidence of worsening. There was insufficient evidence to determine whether changes in thermal comfort and health outcomes varied depending on the type of energy efficiency retrofit. The published research has numerous limitations including a lack of data from retrofits in warm-humid climates and minimal data on changes in objective health outcomes. Suggestions for future research are provided.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Impact of WELL certification on occupant satisfaction and perceived health, well-being, and productivity: A multi-office pre- versus post-occupancy evaluation

The WELL Building Standard (WELL) is currently one of the most comprehensive building certification programs that aim to enhance the health and well-being of building occupants. However, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of WELL in achieving its goal. This study investigates the impact of WELL certification on occupant satisfaction with the workplace and occupant perceived health, well-being, and productivity. More than 1300 pre- and post-occupancy survey responses provided by the nearly same cohort of occupants from six companies in North America were quantitatively analyzed. The results showed that transitioning to WELL certified offices from non-WELL certified offices had a positive impact on occupant satisfaction with the workplace and occupant perceived health, well-being, and productivity, with increases in means from pre-to post-occupancy being highly statistically significant. The majority of the studied occupant satisfaction parameters as well as occupant perceived mental health had large effect sizes. While they improved from pre-to post-occupancy, the analysis revealed small effect sizes for occupant perceived physical health and self-assessed productivity. The majority of the effect sizes for the perceived well-being parameters were large and medium. In addition to analyzing the survey responses in aggregate, the responses were examined at the individual company level to confirm the by-company and aggregate findings aligned.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Health outcomes among offspring of US Coast Guard responders to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 2010–2011

To evaluate the potential for adverse health outcomes among infants born to US Coast Guard (USCG) responders to the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill disaster. Department of Defense Birth and Infant Health Research programme data identified a cohort of singleton infants born 2010–2011 to USCG personnel in the DWH Oil Spill Coast Guard Cohort study. Infants were included if their military parent (‘sponsor’) responded to the oil spill during a selected reproductive exposure window (ie, 3 months preconception for male sponsors and periconception through pregnancy for female sponsors), or if their sponsor was a non-responder. χ 2 tests and multivariable log-binomial regression were used to compare the demographic and health characteristics of infants born to spill responders and non-responders. Altogether, 1974 infants with a male sponsor (n=182 responder, n=1792 non-responder) and 628 infants with a female sponsor (n=35 responder, n=593 non-responder) in the DWH Oil Spill Coast Guard Cohort were identified. Health outcomes were similar among the offspring of male responders and non-responders. The frequency of any poor live birth outcome (ie, low birth weight, preterm birth or birth defect) was higher among infants born to female responders (17.1%, n=6) than non-responders (8.9%, n=53); the maternal age-adjusted association was suggestively elevated (risk ratio 1.93, 95% CI 0.89 to 4.16). Infant health outcomes were comparable between the offspring of male USCG oil spill responders and non-responders. Findings were limited by the small number of infants identified, particularly among female responders, and should be interpreted with caution.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Early Warning Signs of a Mental Health Tsunami: A Coordinated Response to Gather Initial Data Insights From Multiple Digital Services Providers

The immediate impact of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) on morbidity and mortality has raised the need for accurate and real-time data monitoring and communication. The aim of this study is to document the initial observations from multiple digital services providers during the COVID-19 crisis, especially those related to mental health and well-being. We used email and social media to announce an urgent call for support. Digital mental health services providers (N = 46), financial services providers (N = 4), and other relevant digital data source providers (N = 3) responded with quantitative and/or qualitative data insights. People with lived experience of distress, as service users/consumers, and carers are included as co-authors. This study provides proof-of-concept of the viability for researchers and private companies to work collaboratively toward a common good. Digital services providers reported a diverse range of mental health concerns. A recurring observation is that demand for digital mental health support has risen, and that the nature of this demand has also changed since COVID-19, with an apparent increased presentation of anxiety and loneliness. Following this study, we will continue to work with providers in more in-depth ways to capture follow-up insights at regular time points. We will also onboard new providers to address data representativeness. Looking ahead, we anticipate the need for a rigorous process to interpret insights from an even wider variety of sources in order to monitor and respond to mental health needs.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2001

NASA Safety and Health (Short Form). Final rule

This final rule adopts with changes the interim rule published in the Federal Register on April 5, 2001 (65 FR 18051-18053), which amended the NASA FAR Supplement to implement a Safety and Health (Short Form) clause to address safety and occupational health in all NASA contracts above the micro-purchase threshold where the existing Safety and Health clause did not apply, and amended other safety and health clauses to be consistent with the new NASA Safety and Health (Short Form) clause.

Contract Services↗
NASA NTRS2005

An operational approach to long-duration mission behavioral health and performance factors

NASA's participation in nearly 10 yr of long-duration mission (LDM) training and flight confirms that these missions remain a difficult challenge for astronauts and their medical care providers. The role of the astronaut's crew surgeon is to maximize the astronaut's health throughout all phases of the LDM: preflight, in flight, and postflight. In support of the crew surgeon, the NASA-Johnson Space Center Behavioral Health and Performance Group (JSC-BHPG) has focused on four key factors that can reduce the astronaut's behavioral health and performance. These factors are defined as: sleep and circadian factors; behavioral health factors; psychological adaptation factors; and human-to-system interface (the interface between the astronaut and the mission workplace) factors. Both the crew surgeon and the JSC-BHPG must earn the crewmember's trust preflight to encourage problem identification and problem solving in these four areas. Once on orbit, the crew medical officer becomes a valuable extension of the crew surgeon and BHPG on the ground due to the crew medical officer's constant interaction with crewmembers and preflight training in these four factors. However, the crew surgeon, BHPG, and the crew medical officer need tools that will help predict, prevent, monitor, and respond to developing problems. Objective data become essential when difficult mission termination decisions must be made. The need for behavioral health and performance tool development creates an environment rich for collaboration between operational healthcare providers and researchers. These tools are also a necessary step to safely complete future, more autonomous exploration-class space missions.

Review↗
NASA NTRS2016

Impacts of Extreme Events on Human Health

Increased Exposure to Extreme Events Key Finding 1: Health impacts associated with climate-related changes in exposure to extreme events include death, injury, or illness; exacerbation of underlying medical conditions; and adverse effects on mental health[High Confidence]. Climate change will increase exposure risk in some regions of the United States due to projected increases in the frequency and/or intensity of drought, wildfires, and flooding related to extreme precipitation and hurricanes [Medium Confidence].Disruption of Essential Infrastructure Key Finding 2: Many types of extreme events related to climate change cause disruption of infrastructure, including power, water, transportation, and communication systems, that are essential to maintaining access to health care and emergency response services and safeguarding human health [High Confidence].Vulnerability to Coastal Flooding Key Finding 3: Coastal populations with greater vulnerability to health impacts from coastal flooding include persons with disabilities or other access and functional needs, certain populations of color, older adults, pregnant women and children, low-income populations, and some occupational groups [High Confidence].Climate change will increase exposure risk to coastal flooding due to increases in extreme precipitation and in hurricane intensity and rainfall rates, as well as sea level rise and the resulting increases in storm surge.

floods↗