Student interns exploring if air pollution is linked to asthma
USU premed, predental and prepharmacy students have gone back to grade school, with their eyes set on getting into grad school.
Forty USU students are assisting the Bear River Health Department and the University of Utah with a study aimed at determining whether short-term exposure to air pollution has a negative effect on the lung capacity of children, especially those with asthma, at Greenville Elementary.
Clayton Cook, a sophomore predental student majoring in biology, said the study fulfills the requirement for students going into medical fields to participate in hypothesis-based research, but it is more fun than some of the other options.
“Instead of going and working with some inanimate object, you’re working with kids, you’re working with people, and that’s what I enjoy,” Cook said.
The Greenville Asthma/Air Quality Study, which is being conducted in North Logan, began Jan. 8 and will conclude March 8.
Using a device called a spirometer, which measures the air volume a person exhales, the USU interns are studying whether short-term exposure to Logan’s notoriously dirty air does anything to affect the lung capacity of 100 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders.
The children must blow fast and hard for six seconds into the tube-like spirometer every day before and after recess. The device measures their lungs’ forced vital capacity, transferring the data onto a computer and charting it into graphs. Cook said the purpose of the study is to determine whether the kids are being harmed by the air.
“We’re not hoping there are bad effects. We just want to see what the effects are. If we’re just sending them out every day and it’s affecting them adversely, then we’re at fault,” Cook said.
Cook, who said even he has trouble blowing into the device for a full six seconds, said though the results aren’t complete, there is a noticeable difference in some of the children.
“You can definitely tell the difference between those kids that do have asthma and those kids that don’t,” Cook said. “But whether that’s because of the air quality, we don’t know yet.”
Joseph Whitehead, a junior predental student majoring in biochemistry, said even though the study isn’t directly related to dentistry, he believes his participation in it will help him get into dental school and later help him work with patients.
“This internship for me has been a good opportunity. It’s the first time I’ve had any sort of patient exposure,” Whitehead said. “We’re always cracking jokes with the kids, teasing them. I think having that exposure will help.”
Lane Severe, a junior predental student majoring in finance, said he also thinks the interaction with kids will help him later in his career. He said at first the children were timid but warmed up to the interns once they began to get used to them and understand the study. He said in dentistry it’s especially important to learn how to talk to kids in order to make them calm and comfortable.
“I’ve watched a few dentists, and you know, kids get squirming around all over, and then you have to put a sharp thing in their mouth,” Severe said.
He said the research doesn’t have to be related to dentistry to help him.
“Most graduate schools are looking for anything that will set you apart from the next student. The grades are all pretty much the same,” Severe said. “They’ll take any kind of research. You could be just in a lab taking samples of bacteria.”
Instead, Severe and the other interns have been able to interact with each other and with the children. He said because they’re dealing with children, the interns had to undergo fingerprinting and a background check in order to participate in the study.
Dr. Edward Redd, who is overseeing the study, praised the USU interns, calling them “fantastic” and “dedicated.” He said he believes their assistance in the study will help many of them get into graduate school, but he cautioned those who may put their involvement on their resume without being able to explain it in an interview.
“I tell you one thing; you’re not going to be able to bluff your way through it. Those people interviewing know about asthma. So if they don’t know what they’re talking about, it will actually hurt them,” Redd said.
He added overall he has confidence in the interns’ understanding of the study and use of the spirometer, even though it’s “a complicated piece of equipment.”
“They’re bright kids, and they know what they’re doing. I’ve trained them. I’ve watched them do it,” Redd said.
Whitehead said one of the rewarding aspects of the internship has been working with Redd and learning about particulate matter in Cache Valley air.
“He’s teaching us a lot of the chemistry behind the inversion that happens in Cache Valley,” Whitehead said. “The knowledge of that has been really cool, taking the things we learn about in class and applying them in real life.”
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu