Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “COVID 19”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Higher education responses to COVID-19 in the United States: Evidence for the impacts of university policy

With a dataset of testing and case counts from over 1,400 institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States, we analyze the number of infections and deaths from SARS-CoV-2 in the counties surrounding these IHEs during the Fall 2020 semester (August to December, 2020). We find that counties with IHEs that remained primarily online experienced fewer cases and deaths during the Fall 2020 semester; whereas before and after the semester, these two groups had almost identical COVID-19 incidence. Additionally, we see fewer cases and deaths in counties with IHEs that reported conducting any on-campus testing compared to those that reported none. To perform these two comparisons, we used a matching procedure designed to create well-balanced groups of counties that are aligned as much as possible along age, race, income, population, and urban/rural categories—demographic variables that have been shown to be correlated with COVID-19 outcomes. We conclude with a case study of IHEs in Massachusetts—a state with especially high detail in our dataset—which further highlights the importance of IHE-affiliated testing for the broader community. The results in this work suggest that campus testing can itself be thought of as a mitigation policy and that allocating additional resources to IHEs to support efforts to regularly test students and staff would be beneficial to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in a pre-vaccine environment.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Zinc against COVID-19? Symptom surveillance and deficiency risk groups

A wide variety of symptoms is associated with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, and these symptoms can overlap with other conditions and diseases. Knowing the distribution of symptoms across diseases and individuals can support clinical actions on timelines shorter than those for drug and vaccine development. Here, we focus on zinc deficiency symptoms, symptom overlap with other conditions, as well as zinc effects on immune health and mechanistic zinc deficiency risk groups. There are well-studied beneficial effects of zinc on the immune system including a decreased susceptibility to and improved clinical outcomes for infectious pathogens including multiple viruses. Zinc is also an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative stress agent, relevant to some severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms. Unfortunately, zinc deficiency is common worldwide and not exclusive to the developing world. Lifestyle choices and preexisting conditions alone can result in zinc deficiency, and we compile zinc risk groups based on a review of the literature. It is also important to distinguish chronic zinc deficiency from deficiency acquired upon viral infection and immune response and their different supplementation strategies. Zinc is being considered as prophylactic or adjunct therapy for COVID-19, with 12 clinical trials underway, highlighting the relevance of this trace element for global pandemics. Using the example of zinc, we show that there is a critical need for a deeper understanding of essential trace elements in human health, and the resulting deficiency symptoms and their overlap with other conditions. This knowledge will directly support human immune health for decreasing susceptibility, shortening illness duration, and preventing progression to severe cases in the current and future pandemics.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

A scalable method of applying heat and humidity for decontamination of N95 respirators during the COVID-19 crisis

A lack of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs) during the COVID-19 crisis has placed healthcare workers at risk. It is important for any N95 reuse strategy to determine the effects that proposed protocols would have on the physical functioning of the mask, as well as the practical aspects of implementation. Here we propose and implement a method of heating N95 respirators with moisture (85°C, 60-85% humidity). We test both mask filtration efficiency and fit to validate this process. Our tests focus on the 3M 1860, 3M 1870, and 3M 8210 Plus N95 models. After five cycles of the heating procedure, all three respirators pass both quantitative fit testing (score of >100) and show no degradation of mask filtration efficiency. We also test the Chen Heng V9501 KN95 and HKYQ N95 finding no degradation of mask filtration efficiency, however even for unheated masks these scored <50 for every fit test. The heating method presented here is scalable from individual masks to over a thousand a day with a single industrial convection oven, making this method practical for local application inside health-care facilities.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator: A parallel analysis to describe the use of Hydroxychloroquine with or without Azithromycin among hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant global threat. However, despite urgent need, there remains uncertainty surrounding best practices for pharmaceutical interventions to treat COVID-19. In particular, conflicting evidence has emerged surrounding the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, alone or in combination, for COVID-19. The COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator convened by the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, in collaboration with Friends of Cancer Research, assembled experts from the health systems research, regulatory science, data science, and epidemiology to participate in a large parallel analysis of different data sets to further explore the effectiveness of these treatments. Methods: Electronic health record (EHR) and claims data were extracted from seven separate databases. Parallel analyses were undertaken on data extracted from each source. Each analysis examined time to mortality in hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and the two in combination as compared to patients not treated with either drug. Cox proportional hazards models were used, and propensity score methods were undertaken to adjust for confounding. Frequencies of adverse events in each treatment group were also examined. Results: Neither hydroxychloroquine nor azithromycin, alone or in combination, were significantly associated with time to mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. No treatment groups appeared to have an elevated risk of adverse events. Conclusion: Administration of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and their combination appeared to have no effect on time to mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Continued research is needed to clarify best practices surrounding treatment of COVID-19.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

COVID-19-associated school closures and related efforts to sustain education and subsidized meal programs, United States, February 18-June 30, 2020

Pre-emptive school closures are frontline community mitigation measures recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for implementation during severe pandemics. This study describes the spatiotemporal patterns of publicly announced school closures implemented in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and assesses how public K-12 districts adjusted their methods of education delivery and provision of subsidized meals. During February 18–June 30, 2020, we used daily systematic media searches to identify publicly announced COVID-19–related school closures lasting ≥1 day in the United States (US). We also collected statewide school closure policies from state government websites. Data on distance learning and subsidized meal programs were collected from a stratified sample of 600 school districts. The first COVID-19–associated school closure occurred on February 27, 2020 in Washington state. By March 30, 2020, all but one US public school districts were closed, representing the first-ever nearly synchronous nationwide closure of public K-12 schools in the US. Approximately 100,000 public schools were closed for ≥8 weeks because of COVID-19, affecting >50 million K-12 students. Of 600 districts sampled, the vast majority offered distance learning (91.0%) and continued provision of subsidized meal programs (78.8%) during the closures. Despite the sudden and prolonged nature of COVID-19–associated school closures, schools demonstrated flexibility by implementing distance learning and alternate methods to continue subsidized meal programs.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Analysis of mobility data to build contact networks for COVID-19

As social distancing policies and recommendations went into effect in response to COVID-19, people made rapid changes to the places they visit. These changes are clearly seen in mobility data, which records foot traffic using location trackers in cell phones. While mobility data is often used to extract the number of customers that visit a particular business or business type, it is the frequency and duration of concurrent occupancy at those sites that governs transmission. Understanding the way people interact at different locations can help target policies and inform contact tracing and prevention strategies. This paper outlines methods to extract interactions from mobility data and build networks that can be used in epidemiological models. Several measures of interaction are extracted: interactions between people, the cumulative interactions for a single person, and cumulative interactions that occur at particular businesses. Network metrics are computed to identify structural trends which show clear changes based on the timing of stay-at-home orders. Measures of interaction and structural trends in the resulting networks can be used to better understand potential spreading events, the percent of interactions that can be classified as close contacts, and the impact of policy choices to control transmission.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

National variability in Americans’ COVID-19 protective behaviors: Implications for vaccine roll-out

Protective behaviors such as mask wearing and physical distancing are critical to slow the spread of COVID-19, even in the context of vaccine scale-up. Understanding the variation in self-reported COVID-19 protective behaviors is critical to developing public health messaging. The purpose of the study is to provide nationally representative estimates of five self-reported COVID-19 protective behaviors and correlates of such behaviors. In this cross-sectional survey study of US adults, surveys were administered via internet and telephone. Adults were surveyed from April 30-May 4, 2020, a time of peaking COVID-19 incidence within the US. Participants were recruited from the probability-based AmeriSpeak® national panel. Brief surveys were completed by 994 adults, with 73.0% of respondents reported mask wearing, 82.7% reported physical distancing, 75.1% reported crowd avoidance, 89.8% reported increased hand-washing, and 7.7% reported having prior COVID-19 testing. Multivariate analysis (p critical value .05) indicates that women were more likely to report protective behaviors than men, as were those over age 60. Respondents who self-identified as having low incomes, histories of criminal justice involvement, and Republican Party affiliation, were less likely to report four protective behaviors, though Republicans and individuals with criminal justice histories were more likely to report having received COVID-19 testing. The majority of Americans engaged in COVID-19 protective behaviors, with low-income Americans, those with histories of criminal justice involvement, and self-identified Republicans less likely to engage in these preventive behaviors. Culturally competent public health messaging and interventions might focus on these latter groups to prevent future infections. These findings will remain highly relevant even with vaccines widely available, given the complementarities between vaccines and protective behaviors, as well as the many challenges in delivering vaccines.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

A modified Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model for observed under-reported incidence data

Fitting Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) models to incidence data is problematic when not all infected individuals are reported. Assuming an underlying SIR model with general but known distribution for the time to recovery, this paper derives the implied differential-integral equations for observed incidence data when a fixed fraction of newly infected individuals are not observed. The parameters of the resulting system of differential equations are identifiable. Using these differential equations, we develop a stochastic model for the conditional distribution of current disease incidence given the entire past history of reported cases. We estimate the model parameters using Bayesian Markov Chain Monte-Carlo sampling of the posterior distribution. We use our model to estimate the transmission rate and fraction of asymptomatic individuals for the current Coronavirus 2019 outbreak in eight American Countries: the United States of America, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Panama, from January 2020 to May 2021. Our analysis reveals that the fraction of reported cases varies across all countries. For example, the reported incidence fraction for the United States of America varies from 0.3 to 0.6, while for Brazil it varies from 0.2 to 0.4.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variant binding affinity to an angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 fusion glycoproteins

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, continues to evolve and circulate globally. Current prophylactic and therapeutic countermeasures against Covid-19 infection include vaccines, small molecule drugs, and neutralizing monoclonal antibodies. SARS-CoV-2 infection is mainly mediated by the viral spike glycoprotein binding to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on host cells for viral entry. As emerging mutations in the spike protein evade efficacy of spike-targeted countermeasures, a potential strategy to counter SARS-CoV-2 infection is to competitively block the spike protein from binding to the host ACE2 using a soluble recombinant fusion protein that contains a human ACE2 and an IgG1-Fc domain (ACE2-Fc). Here, we have established Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines that stably express ACE2-Fc proteins in which the ACE2 domain either has or has no catalytic activity. The fusion proteins were produced and purified to partially characterize physicochemical properties and spike protein binding. Our results demonstrate the ACE2-Fc fusion proteins are heavily N-glycosylated, sensitive to thermal stress, and actively bind to five spike protein variants (parental, alpha, beta, delta, and omicron) with different affinity. Our data demonstrates a proof-of-concept production strategy for ACE2-Fc fusion glycoproteins that can bind to different spike protein variants to support the manufacture of potential alternative countermeasures for emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluation of co-circulating pathogens and microbiome from COVID-19 infections

Co-infections or secondary infections with SARS-CoV-2 have the potential to affect disease severity and morbidity. Additionally, the potential influence of the nasal microbiome on COVID-19 illness is not well understood. In this study, we analyzed 203 residual samples, originally submitted for SARS-CoV-2 testing, for the presence of viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens and non-pathogens using a comprehensive microarray technology, the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA). Eighty-seven percent of the samples were nasopharyngeal samples, and 23% of the samples were oral, nasal and oral pharyngeal swabs. We conducted bioinformatics analyses to examine differences in microbial populations of these samples, as a proxy for the nasal and oral microbiome, from SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative specimens. We found 91% concordance with the LLMDA relative to a diagnostic RT-qPCR assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2. Sixteen percent of all the samples (32/203) revealed the presence of an opportunistic bacterial or frank viral pathogen with the potential to cause co-infections. The two most detected bacteria, Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae , were present in both SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative samples. Human metapneumovirus was the most prevalent viral pathogen in the SARS-CoV-2 negative samples. Sequence analysis of 16S rRNA was also conducted to evaluate bacterial diversity and confirm LLMDA results.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Insights from a workplace SARS-CoV-2 specimen collection program, with genomes placed into global sequence phylogeny

In 2020, the Department of Energy established the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) to address key challenges associated with COVID-19. As part of that effort, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) established a capability to collect and analyze specimens from employees who self-reported symptoms consistent with the disease. During the spring and fall of 2021, 688 specimens were screened for SARS-CoV-2, with 64 (9.3%) testing positive using reverse-transcriptase quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Of these, 36 samples were released for research. All 36 positive samples released for research were sequenced and genotyped. Here, the relationship between patient age and viral load as measured by Ct values was measured and determined to be only weakly significant. Consensus sequences for each sample were placed into a global phylogeny and transmission dynamics were investigated, revealing that the closest relative for many samples was from outside of Washington state, indicating mixing of viral pools within geographic regions.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

A natural mutation between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV determines neutralization by a cross-reactive antibody

Epitopes that are conserved among SARS-like coronaviruses are attractive targets for design of cross-reactive vaccines and therapeutics. CR3022 is a SARS-CoV neutralizing antibody to a highly conserved epitope on the receptor binding domain (RBD) on the spike protein that is able to cross-react with SARS-CoV-2, but with lower affinity. Using x-ray crystallography, mutagenesis, and binding experiments, we illustrate that of four amino acid differences in the CR3022 epitope between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, a single mutation P384A fully determines the affinity difference. CR3022 does not neutralize SARS-CoV-2, but the increased affinity to SARS-CoV-2 P384A mutant now enables neutralization with a similar potency to SARS-CoV. We further investigated CR3022 interaction with the SARS-CoV spike protein by negative-stain EM and cryo-EM. Three CR3022 Fabs bind per trimer with the RBD observed in different up-conformations due to considerable flexibility of the RBD. In one of these conformations, quaternary interactions are made by CR3022 to the N-terminal domain (NTD) of an adjacent subunit. Overall, this study provides insights into antigenic variation and potential cross-neutralizing epitopes on SARS-like viruses.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England

Genetic drift in infectious disease transmission results from randomness of transmission and host recovery or death. The strength of genetic drift for SARS-CoV-2 transmission is expected to be high due to high levels of superspreading, and this is expected to substantially impact disease epidemiology and evolution. However, we don’t yet have an understanding of how genetic drift changes over time or across locations. Furthermore, noise that results from data collection can potentially confound estimates of genetic drift. To address this challenge, we develop and validate a method to jointly infer genetic drift and measurement noise from time-series lineage frequency data. Our method is highly scalable to increasingly large genomic datasets, which overcomes a limitation in commonly used phylogenetic methods. We apply this method to over 490,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences from England collected between March 2020 and December 2021 by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium and separately infer the strength of genetic drift for pre-B.1.177, B.1.177, Alpha, and Delta. We find that even after correcting for measurement noise, the strength of genetic drift is consistently, throughout time, higher than that expected from the observed number of COVID-19 positive individuals in England by 1 to 3 orders of magnitude, which cannot be explained by literature values of superspreading. Our estimates of genetic drift suggest low and time-varying establishment probabilities for new mutations, inform the parametrization of SARS-CoV-2 evolutionary models, and motivate future studies of the potential mechanisms for increased stochasticity in this system.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Chaos, Percolation and the Coronavirus Spread

The dynamics of the spreading of the COVID-19 virus has similar features to the turbulent flow, chaotic maps and other non-linear systems: a small seed grows exponentially and eventually saturates. Like in the percolation model, the virus is mostly dangerous if the probability of transmission (or the bond probability p in the percolation model) is high. This suggests a relation with the population density, ρ s , which must be higher than a certain value (ρ s > 1000 persons/km 2 ). A ‘seed’ implanted in such towns grows vigorously and affects nearby places at distance x. Thus, the spreading is governed by the ratio ρ = ρ s /x. Assuming a power law dependence τ of the number of positives to the virus N + from ρ, we find τ = 0.55, 0.75 and 0.96 for S.Korea, Italy and China respectively.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

A pre-registered short-term forecasting study of COVID-19 in Germany and Poland during the second wave

Disease modelling has had considerable policy impact during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and it is increasingly acknowledged that combining multiple models can improve the reliability of outputs. Here we report insights from ten weeks of collaborative short-term forecasting of COVID-19 in Germany and Poland (12 October–19 December 2020). The study period covers the onset of the second wave in both countries, with tightening non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and subsequently a decay (Poland) or plateau and renewed increase (Germany) in reported cases. Thirteen independent teams provided probabilistic real-time forecasts of COVID-19 cases and deaths. These were reported for lead times of one to four weeks, with evaluation focused on one- and two-week horizons, which are less affected by changing NPIs. Heterogeneity between forecasts was considerable both in terms of point predictions and forecast spread. Ensemble forecasts showed good relative performance, in particular in terms of coverage, but did not clearly dominate single-model predictions. The study was preregistered and will be followed up in future phases of the pandemic.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Publication and Impact of Preprints Included in the First 100 Editions of the CDC COVID-19 Science Update: Content Analysis

Preprints are publicly available manuscripts posted to various servers that have not been peer reviewed. Although preprints have existed since 1961, they have gained increased popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the need for immediate, relevant information. The aim of this study is to evaluate the publication rate and impact of preprints included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 Science Update and assess the performance of the COVID-19 Science Update team in selecting impactful preprints. All preprints in the first 100 editions (April 1, 2020, to July 30, 2021) of the Science Update were included in the study. Preprints that were not published were categorized as “unpublished preprints.” Preprints that were subsequently published exist in 2 versions (in a peer-reviewed journal and on the original preprint server), which were analyzed separately and referred to as “peer-reviewed preprint” and “original preprint,” respectively. Time to publish was the time interval between the date on which a preprint was first posted and the date on which it was first available as a peer-reviewed article. Impact was quantified by Altmetric Attention Score and citation count for all available manuscripts on August 6, 2021. Preprints were analyzed by publication status, publication rate, preprint server, and time to publication. Of the 275 preprints included in the CDC COVID-19 Science Update during the study period, most came from three servers: medRxiv (n=201, 73.1%), bioRxiv (n=41, 14.9%), and SSRN (n=25, 9.1%), with 8 (2.9%) coming from other sources. Additionally, 152 (55.3%) were eventually published. The median time to publish was 2.3 (IQR 1.4-3.7). When preprints posted in the last 2.3 months were excluded (to account for the time to publish), the publication rate was 67.8%. Moreover, 76 journals published at least one preprint from the CDC COVID-19 Science Update, and 18 journals published at least three. The median Altmetric Attention Score for unpublished preprints (n=123, 44.7%) was 146 (IQR 22-552) with a median citation count of 2 (IQR 0-8); for original preprints (n=152, 55.2%), these values were 212 (IQR 22-1164) and 14 (IQR 2-40), respectively; for peer-review preprints, these values were 265 (IQR 29-1896) and 19 (IQR 3-101), respectively. Prior studies of COVID-19 preprints found publication rates between 5.4% and 21.1%. Preprints included in the CDC COVID-19 Science Update were published at a higher rate than overall COVID-19 preprints, and those that were ultimately published were published within months and received higher attention scores than unpublished preprints. These findings indicate that the Science Update process for selecting preprints had a high fidelity in terms of their likelihood to be published and their impact. The incorporation of high-quality preprints into the CDC COVID-19 Science Update improves this activity’s capacity to inform meaningful public health decision-making.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

TDCOSMO - XVII. New time delays in 22 lensed quasars from optical monitoring with the ESO-VST 2.6m and MPG 2.2m telescopes

We present new time delays, the main ingredient of time delay cosmography, for 22 lensed quasars resulting from high-cadence r-band monitoring on the 2.6 m ESO VLT Survey Telescope and Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 2.2 m telescope. Each lensed quasar was typically monitored for one to four seasons, often shared between the two telescopes to mitigate the interruptions forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of targets consists of 19 quadruply and 3 doubly imaged quasars, which received a total of 1918 hours of on-sky time split into 21 581 wide-field frames, each 320 seconds long. In a given field, the 5-σ depth of the combined exposures typically reaches the 27th magnitude, while that of single visits is 24.5 mag – similar to the expected depth of the upcoming Vera-Rubin LSST. The fluxes of the different lensed images of the targets were reliably de-blended, providing not only light curves with photometric precision down to the photon noise limit, but also high-resolution models of the targets whose features and astrometry were systematically confirmed in Hubble Space Telescope imaging. This was made possible thanks to a new photometric pipeline, lightcurver, and the forward modelling method STARRED. Finally, the time delays between pairs of curves and their uncertainties were estimated, taking into account the degeneracy due to microlensing, and for the first time the full covariance matrices of the delay pairs are provided. Of note, this survey, with 13 square degrees, has applications beyond that of time delays, such as the study of the structure function of the multiple high-redshift quasars present in the footprint at a new high in terms of both depth and frequency. The reduced images will be available through the European Southern Observatory Science Portal.Key words: methods: data analysis / surveys / distance scale

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
NASA NTRS2022

Environmental Justice Needs-Assessment For Health & Air Quality: Assessing the Needs and Capacity of Organizations Working Towards Health and Environmental Justice Related to Health and Air Quality

Health and air quality are concerns in environmental justice (EJ) work, as air contaminants and their adverse health effects inequitably impact communities that are often underrepresented in research and litigation. Previously, the NASA DEVELOP National Program partnered with organizations that focus on a variety of health and air quality concerns and is now committed to partnering directly with EJ organizations to address inequities in health and air quality through the application of Earth observations. To support the establishment of future partnerships, DEVELOP is working to identify potential partners for further EJ research in the U.S. regarding health and air quality. This project conducted a needs assessment with EJ organizations to quantify their EJ involvement, geospatial capacity, and interest in collaborating with DEVELOP. A broad literature review identified multiple factors influencing health and air quality for potential DEVELOP projects: agriculture, heat, wildfires, industry and transportation infrastructure, and miscellaneous factors (e.g., burning, urban heat island effect, smoke plumes, truck exhaust, and noise). The needs assessment showed that 22% of the organizations interviewed were primarily concerned with transportation infrastructure, 21% with industry, 19% with heat, 10% with miscellaneous factors (e.g., resource mining, COVID-19), 8% with wildfires, 7% with agriculture, and 6% with resource mining. This will help inform the DEVELOP Program's pursuit of EJ projects relating to health and air quality. The team also created a directory for communities impacted by air pollutants to connect with geospatial resources and NASA Applied Sciences personnel for future EJ health and air quality work.

Elizabeth Duran↗