Our Work Is Local, but Our Impact Is Global

How does indoor air quality affect childhood asthma? This project, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is testing a new approach that attempts to answer this question.

Traditional long-term research projects share results with participants at the end of a study, but oftentimes the information they receive is too little, too late. To address that, Whole CommunitiesWhole Health is developing an interactive smartphone app that will translate raw data collected during the study into actionable, real-time information.

The Whole Communities–Whole Health team has built and tested a smart device that uses environmental sensors to better understand how indoor air quality affects family health by measuring indoor air pollution, carbon dioxide levels, humidity, and temperature in real-time.

Preliminary findings suggest that the pandemic has resulted in changes in the frequency of health behaviors. The lessons learned from this research will be incorporated in the broader Whole Communities–Whole Health cohort study with input from potential participants and community members.

How can scientists effectively measure mood and stress over time? What are the best ways to partner with communities with access to fewer resources? A team from the UT School of Nursing partnered with Del Valle Independent School District to help answer those questions over the course of an 8-week mindfulness program in 2019.

Parenting in a pandemic presents unique challenges that may affect the physical, emotional and behavioral health of parents and children alike, and the academic progress of children. 

Participation in physical activity is associated with better performance in school, but most children do not meet the recommendations of the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans for 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

Externalizing disorders, including behaviors such as tantrums, defiance, and aggression, are among the most common and costly disorders of childhood. Behavioral indicators of these disorders often emerge by the third year of life, but current methods of identifying them are often time-intensive and expensive.

Incidents of discrimination are a part of everyday life for young people of color, and although many studies document the negative effects of discrimination, we know almost nothing about how it influences health over time. How do experiences of bias and mistreatment play a part in creating racial and ethnic health disparities?

In order to study the effectiveness of using a blend of sensing technology like smartphone apps and wearable technology, self-reported surveys, and readily available group-level information (grades, attendance), our team developed a study to understand more about the social lives, sleep habits, physical activity levels, and academic performance of 1000 UT undergraduate students in the 2019-2020 school year.