Dr. Matthew Shupler’s research is focused on reducing the adverse health & climate impacts of household air pollution from use of polluting fuels (e.g. wood, charcoal) for household energy.His work includes characterizing variation in exposures of PM2.5 and other health-damaging air pollutants, and assessing interventions that contribute to increased use of clean cooking fuels. He completed his PhD in Population & Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Canada and is currently a postdoc at University of Liverpool in the UK.
Approximately 40% of global population, primarily in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, are exposed to harmful household air pollution (HAP) from cooking with polluting fuels (e.g. wood, coal). Exposure to HAP was the second highest environmental risk factor in the Global Burden of Disease 2019, with an estimated 2.3 million attributable deaths. Residential combustion of polluting fuels further contributes to outdoor air pollution and emissions of climate-forcing pollutants, including up to one-third of global anthropogenic emissions of black carbon (BC). Technological innovations in air monitoring, data transfer, autonomous filter weighing and real-time quality control procedures enabled large-scale HAP measurement in PURE-AIR. This presentation will discuss these advancements along with statistical modeling techniques used to rapidly scale up PM2.5 and BC exposure assessment for use in future epidemiological analyses.