Bilec's Built Environment & Sustainable Engineering Group
Climate Change and Environmental Justice
While research around combating climate change has historically focused on energy use and external greenhouse gas emissions, recent studies target a more in-depth characterization of how both indoor (e.g., printers and copiers, radiant heaters, aging carpet) and outdoor emission sources (e.g., tobacco smoke, suspended soils, traffic exhaust) degrade the built environment. This research aims to quantify the impact energy efficiency responses have on improvements in ambient air quality, which in turn may further elucidate community-wide progress to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) both in residential and commercial buildings. Exposure to ambient air pollution may exacerbate the effects poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) has on community health and quality of life, considering Americans spend 90% of their time indoors (EPA 2015).
Environmental Justice
Since the early 1980s, hundreds of studies have concluded that low-income and minority communities are imposed with a higher burden of ecological contamination from industrial and consumer practices (Mohai 2009). Consensus within academia, amongst public health experts and environmental health researchers, conclude that industrial land use patterns and ambient air quality exposure, coupled with socioeconomic strata show strong evidence of persistence in environmental health disparities (Morello-Frosch 2005).
Our research has helped develop and enhance the Environmental Justice Community Alert Matrix (EJCAM) program to mitigate air quality risk in and throughout Pittsburgh through citizen-science, civic engagement, and resident trainings in vulnerable communities. For our citizen science research, we have implemented an resident inclusive Air Monitoring Bike Campaign to contribute to developing areas of air monitoring, data quality, and citizen science. Mobile monitoring campaigns have been integrated in air quality studies for their high spatial resolution in urban environments. For civic engagement and training piece, we have spearheaded the Urban Transition Cities Movement (UTCM) and Community Action Team (CAT) workshops designed to mobilize communities through pre- and post-education that incorporates longer-term efficacy of multifaceted engineering intervention approaches.
We installed two stationary monitoring sites in Larimer, Pittsburgh, as a key element in conducting a longitudinal study addressing the relationship between air quality and a community’s quality of life. Indoor air quality (IAQ) assessments were conducted in 21 homes and coupled with the results of a quality of life survey, developed from the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization, to uncover statistical relationships between the built environment and perceived quality of life. Pressing issues from poverty to crime are at the forefront of environmental justice communities, leaving the topics of indoor air quality and environmental sustainability untouched; this research filled the gap in the literature.
Funding Sources
Associated Publications
Rickenbacker, H.J., Bilec, M.M.* (2020 accepted). “Engaging communities in air pollution research: Investigating the effects of indoor air quality and the built environment on quality of life.” Accepted, ASCE Journal of Architectural Engineering.
Rickenbacker, H.J., Collinge, W.O., Hasik, V., Ciranni, A., Smith, I., Colao, P., Sharrard, A.L., Bilec, M.M.* (2020). “Development of a Standardized Protocol and Data-Driven Survey Instrument for Indoor Air Quality Assessments in Energy Conservation Districts.” Sustainable Cities and Society, 52(2020) 101831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101831
Rickenbacker, H.J., Brown, F., Bilec, M.M.* (2019). “Creating Environmental Consciousness in Environmental Justice Communities: Implementation and Outcomes of Community-Based Environmental Justice and Air Pollution Research.” Sustainable Cities and Society, 47(2019), 101473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101473