Community air-monitoring networks may benefit researchers and local residents by providing more refined data through lower-cost operations. One such network, the Clean Air Ambassador Program, was implemented in Washington’s Methow Valley by Clean Air Methow, part of the Methow Valley Citizens Council, in response to local concerns about air quality issues. The rural communities in the Methow Valley frequently experience poor air quality from a number of sources, including wildfires, woodstoves, and agricultural burning. The community network has been collecting data since 2018 with a series of low-cost Purple Air monitors hosted by local volunteers (Clean Air Ambassadors), but there has not been much information published about best practices or standards in recruiting and retaining volunteers or creating such networks.

Two Clean Air Ambassador Families Show Off Their Purple Air Monitors. (Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Walker)

To address this gap and strengthen community science practices, Clean Air Methow partnered with researchers from the University of Washington’s Collaborative on Extreme Event Resilience and Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and the Environment (EDGE). A student researcher interviewed Clean Air Ambassadors about their motivations in hosting sensors, how they used the data, ideas for future uses of the network, and challenges with the Clean Air Ambassadors project. The results were published in a paper, Establishing a Community Air Monitoring Network in a Wildfire Smoke-Prone Rural Community: The Motivations, Experiences, Challenges, and Ideas of Clean Air Methow’s Clean Air Ambassadors.

“Methow Valley community members have been really willing to collaborate with us to understand wildfire smoke exposures and associated health impacts,” said Nicole Errett, Ph.D., a disaster and public health policy researcher at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Director of EDGE’s Community Engagement Core. “We wanted to understand what drove their motivation to participate and what their experiences were like, to inform our own project directions as well as similar community-engaged research efforts in other wildfire smoke-prone areas.”

Volunteers reported sparking community conversations when sharing sensor data. Dr. Elizabeth Walker, Clean Air Methow’s program director, was excited to hear this.

“Our foundational vision for this program was that Clean Air Ambassadors could inspire community discussions, simply by hosting a sensor and being willing to talk about it,” said Walker. “The ambassadors are a timely and critical resource that help the community speak about topics such as how to raise awareness of the dangers of wildfire smoke exposure; whether the county should invest in a composting facility to reduce outdoor burning; how to get air purifiers to vulnerable households during heavy wildfire smoke; and how sports coaches can use sensor data to make informed decisions about holding practice indoors or outdoors.”

Making real-life decisions based on environmental data can have a big impact on the health of a community, and the Clean Air Ambassadors are eager to increase the number of sensors in their own network and to spread this method to additional areas across the nation. They also suggested an app to make the data easily accessible. These steps would bring actionable data to more people and increase data usability. But Errett points out that more research is needed to determine the long-term effectiveness of protective actions that people might take as a result of seeing the data, such as mask-wearing and staying indoors.

“Community air monitor networks hold great promise for enhancing our understanding of exposures during wildfires and other disasters,” said Errett. “But these networks also empower communities to sustainably gather their own data and have discussions that can lead to impactful changes and improved health. We hope the insights from our interviews with the Clean Air Ambassadors encourage other community science leaders to jump-start their own networks.”

Walker noted that the program continues to grow its visibility and impact. Clean Air Methow has developed the ambassador-requested app to display air quality data and is hoping to incorporate a push notification for when air quality degrades. Additionally, with support from an Environmental Justice grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Methow is offering additional trainings for the volunteers and is asking the ambassadors to be more active on social media. A partnership with Family Health Centers will also support outreach to Spanish-speaking populations, many of whom are outdoor agricultural workers with high wildfire smoke exposures.

Community Scientists: What Motivates Them?

The interviews with the Clean Air Ambassadors revealed a lot about the community science experience. Clean Air Ambassadors, many of whom regularly spend a lot of time outdoors, reported a variety of motivations for participating in the program, including exposure reduction and an interest in learning more about air quality or environmental science. Volunteers also wanted to help the community by sharing information which could, for example, guide decisions and planning around outdoor school activities. Some said they were also motivated by concerns about family members’ susceptibility to the health effects of wildfire smoke and wanted to decrease exposure-related health issues such as headaches and difficulty breathing. In terms of data usage, volunteers used the data from the monitors for different reasons: understanding air quality conditions during smoke events, avoiding smoke exposure, and making decisions about wearing protective masks and about exercising.

Errett is hopeful that promoting awareness of community science will lead to more engagement, empowering more communities to make meaningful change on important environmental health issues. She also believes that learning about community scientists’ experiences, and applying those lessons to future research, will improve the community science experience for all involved.