By: Hannah Fraser, News Writer
The Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society (PIPPS) is a research institute based at SFU Burnaby. They have now “led 25 workshops helping people build more than 500 air filters to clean the air in their homes and reduce exposure to fine particulates from wildfire smoke.”
Dr. Anne-Marie Nicol, associate professor in the faculty of health science, said to SFU News that while wildfire smoke makes its way indoors, “indoor air quality is often overlooked.” This smoke can cause long-term health issues like “lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, exacerbate asthma, and make life miserable for people with existing lung disease.”
With funding from the BC Lung Foundation, the City of Vancouver, and more, Dr. Nicol and her team have built “simplified versions of the Corsi-Rosenthal box.” The box is a cost-effective “DIY method of building your own air filter” and is made with a box fan, air filters (MERV-13), and duct tape. It costs less than $100 to create a single air filter this way.
For many “renters and people in group-living or subsidized housing,” sophisticated air filter systems can be costly, and people in the Okanagan are often subject to smoky air from wildfires. In just March this year, there were two wildfires that came as an “absolute surprise” to Lumby Mayor Kevin Acton. “It is really early in the year for something like this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before, actually,” he told Global News.
PIPPS plans to lead 25 more workshops in “Lillooet, Rock Creek, Oliver, and Osoyoos” this summer to surpass the “500 units built last year.” They also want to “pilot the viability of the workshop in smaller, rural and Indigenous communities, where access to extra supplies may be difficult.” The Peak corresponded with Dr. Nicol and Riley Condon, a research assistant with PIPPS, for more information.
It costs less than $100 to create a single air filter this way.
Dr. Nicol said the inspiration behind the project was reading Dr. Angela Eykelbosh’s research review on homemade air filters being effective at reducing exposure to COVID-19. Eykelbosh is an environmental research scientist with the BC Centre for Disease Control, whom Dr. Nicol has worked with.
The homemade air filters PIPPS are building help remove PM2.5 from the air. PM2.5 is a “fine particulate matter” that is a mix of “smoke, soot, liquid, or solid particles in aerosol” that can “travel deeply into the lungs” and into the bloodstream. “PM2.5 is the main problematic constituent that’s found in fire smoke,” said Dr. Nicol. Research assistant Riley Condon said PM2.5 can cause heart attacks and strokes.
A November 2022 study demonstrated that these DIY air filters are effective as they reduce “simulated wildfire smoke in a controlled chamber environment.”
Condon explained that the PIPPS team created a DIY guide on how to make the air filters and how to organize workshops to help others create the air filters. She also said that on July 2, Dr. Nicol and Prem Gundarah, another research assistant with PIPPS, held a workshop for the First Nations Health Authority.
“People have lots of great questions, and we have answers, as scientists we have answers, we just need to get them into the hands of people who can use those answers,” said Dr. Nicol. She said many individuals who don’t have access to the internet and aren’t used to looking online for help are at the workshops. This is most often experienced by Canada’s rural, Indigenous, elderly, and new immigrants.
Dr. Nicol noted that these are often the individuals disproportionately impacted by environmental exposure, so it’s great to be able to help them in person. “We’re democratizing information and helping make it available to everybody,” she continued.
