Children’s Health and the Salton Sea

This work seeks to understand how increasing exposures to wind-blown dust and its potential toxic constituents impact child health over time, in a way that is responsive to community concerns about the drying of a saline lake in southeastern California (the Salton Sea). The Assessing Imperial Valley Respiratory Health and the Environment (AIRE) study consists of 500 elementary school children in the rural border region to assess the impact of dust and its composition on respiratory health using innovative lung inflammation biomarkers, community-owned air monitors and source-profiling of respirable dust (MPI Farzan/Johnston). The AIRE project grew from building local partnerships with Comite Civico de Valle and local schools.