Thread by @MarinaC_Dyb

After 3 long, hard years of tireless work, our cross-campus, multi-discilinary academic team reaching our goal: State of CT support to scale up CR Boxes for every classroom in Connecticut! 💪🌬️💫💫

This passion project started from the point of care at @uconnhealth 🏥where I have been treating people living with MS since 2017 as a neuro-immunology nurse practitioner. 👩‍⚕️

When the 🦠 pandemic struck, my immunosuppressed patients were vulnerable - majority females with families and many educators that work in our CT Schools. 👩‍🏫👦🧒 [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…]

I looked at the mitigation efforts in these hubs of our communities and saw a gap - no air purifiers in schools, while @JohnsHopkinsSPH and @HarvardChanSPH recommended this intervention.[centerforhealthsecurity.org/2021/new-repor…]

After watching @kprather88 of @UCSDHealth build 200 CR Boxes with her team on Twitter in 2021, I saw the brilliance of @CorsIAQ and @JimRosenthal4's idea and quickly got to work at @UConn assembling a multi-disciplinary team spanning UConn Health, UConn Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and @UConnNeag School of Education, College @UConnEngineer, and @ctchildrens to methodically study, pilot, build, and deploy #CorsiRosenthalBoxes in our state at scale.

Seeing no air purifiers in classrooms, our team worked to study the effectiveness of these low-cost, high efficacy prototypes both in laboratory and real world settings. First, we ran an experiment looking at how effective these units were at removing aerosols in our occupied university classrooms. []researchgate.net/publication/36…

In parallel, we hustled. I secured a donation of $800 worth of duct tape from @HomeDepot, $10,000 from the Petit Family Foundation's Haley's Hope and Michael's Miracle MS Memorial Fund 🧡, and we ordered supplies to host our first boxathon, like @BkPhilanthropy and others.
@UConnHealth, UConn School of Medicine and School of Nursing faculty, students, and staff joined together to create 100 air purifiers and urge public action. 🎙️📽️

These were donated to CT elementary schools next to the health center. Each school matched our private funding to scale up this intervention and get the word out 📢 🏥👩‍⚕️
[nbcconnecticut.com/news/coronavir…]

We held a second event a few months later, this time at the @UConnNursing, sharing the message that #CovidIsAirborne and that by opening windows, running air purifiers, we can reduce viral exposure and minimize disease transmission. Florence Nightingale figured this out years ago. [indoorairquality.initiative.uconn.edu/boxes-in-actio…]

We donated these air purifiers to the local school district next to campus. [yahoo.com/news/clearing-…]

Next, @UConnEngineer, incorporated #CRBoxes into the freshman ENG1166 class project, where another 100 air purifiers were studied, constructed, tested, and deployed. Engineering instructors shared their positive experiences and published on the experience for @ASEE_DC conferences with students and faculty involvement. ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.128…

With growing momentum, our @UConn AHEC [] team and scholars held *another* boxathon, creating another 100 CRBox air purifiers which went to community spaces in need. health.uconn.edu/connecticut-ar…

In September 2022, after corresponding with @WHOSTP and gaining federal support, we held our first #CRBox air purifier in-service with @nwmmshartford, where Dr. Kristina Wagstrom and I rolled out our first STEM lesson plan to the kids and led them in a build specifically for @POTUS.
courant.com/2022/09/11/fif…

Soon afterwards, at the same time a major air quality conference in DC, [centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/event… and I met with White House senior advisors, and even @ashishkjha, to urge scaling up these simply prototypes which we knew were at least 90% effective at removing COVID and other infectious agents from the air based on the MERV-13 rating and virus-laden aerosol distribution.
"Air Force One" landed at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where it resides today.

@kprather88 connected our team with @VitalikButerin, whose new non-profit Balvi, was connecting public health researchers with funding for innovate projects like ours. We received 300,000 USD in stablecoin, along with @ArizonaState and @JehnML, and together we set out to measure efficacy of the deployed #CrBoxes in CT and AZ classrooms.

Our #WomeninSTEM team published the findings, which showed over a 60% removal of aerosols in classrooms - with the aerosol emitters still present!

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Our initiative website went live in 2022, where we continued to build a repository of evidence, photos of our work, and media coverage. We continued to hear about pushback getting these air purifiers into schools, even in some pockets of CT.

s.uconn.edu/iaq

A few weeks after the WH trip, I received a USPS letter 📭📮at clinic from a 5th grader who saw our work on the cover of the @hartfordcourant and asked if we could share our plans, as "her school was built in 1924" and had bad air quality. She wanted to run an experiment to tell if having CRBoxes could reduce her classmates absences!

The author? Young Eniola Shokunbi, who quickly impressed our team with her interest in helping her school.

Our team was so thrilled with Eniola's curiousity, we didn't just share the plans. We visited her school and hosted a similar in-service that created "Air Force One".

This time, we had funded research and instruments, and our @WomeninSTEM team of engineers, clinicians, @ctchildrens Asthma center director Dr. Jessica Hollenbach.

The students amazed us by building 5 CR Boxes for their school and discussing sources of indoor and outdoor air pollution. We even discussed how brains 🧠work better in clear air and can improve test scors! 📈📈💫💫

Young Eniola and her classmates took our visit seriously. So seriously, she attended @MiddletownPS Board of Ed meeting to share their experience and urge for support to improve IAQ asap with these simply science projects!

After watching @EPA scientist @katmratliff's presentation on new and emerging air cleaning technologies [] she and I met and planned a collaboration to test a student-made #CRBox in a laboratory against MS2, a SARS2 bacteriophage Dr. Ratliff has been using in experiments with bipolar ionization air technology.epa.gov/iaq-schools/fo…

Back to @Macdonough we went! This time, we provided materials (and art supplies!) to Eniola's class and announced their mission after teaching them about bacteria, viruses, and even bacteriophages! 🦠🦠

Their school mascot is an Owl, and the students voted and chose an to decorate the in rainbow colors for pride month (June). They built a second air purifier to stay in their classroom, and joined their school in a competition for the most creative #CRBox which we also announced that visit.

The battle was almost on! "Owl Force One" vs MS2!

We chronicled the road trip, as we drove it from CT->NC to keep the box assembled and ready for testing.

Our special guest on the trip? Eniola and her family!

Our @UConn team, Dr. Kristina Wagstrom of chemical engineering, Dr. Misti Zamora-Levy of public health, and myself met @katmratliff and her team and watched as the battle began.

The preliminary results looked promising...

Together, we explored the @EPAresearch headquarters and Eniola was interviewed by @WRAL and other NC news stations about her involvement.

Eniola, a fellow @taylorswift13 fan, and our team commemorated our @WomeninSTEM trip with Swiftie bracelets celebrating our progress with clean air and Owl Force One.

When we returned to #CT, the final experiment numbers were ready. @katmratliff joined us back with @JohnFerreroCT at Macdonough with @LGSusanB, @MattLesser and our @UConnResearch team.

She shared Dr. Ratliffe's results from the microphone: 97% removal of MS2 within 30 minutes, and 99.4% removed within 60 minutes.

today.uconn.edu/2023/10/epa-te…
eurekalert.org/news-releases/…
upi.com/Health_News/20…

It was at that meeting that Eniola asked for a commitment from @LGSusanB, @NedLamont and even @POTUS. She asked for that the state provide for these air purifiers in every classroom throughout Connecticut!

A short while later, at the first @UConn_InCHIP with @kerri_raissian and @jfoster_rd held the first "Moving Forward" conference at the Capitol, connecting researchers with policymakers.

We urged CT policymakers to immediately act and provide for these simple, evidence-based air purifiers which take only 30 minutes and ~$65 of materials. We shared our work from 2021 until that day.

ct-n.com/ctnplayer.asp?…

Over the next several months, we continued to beat the drum that the school indoor air quality problem continued to remain unsolved, when we had a resource ready for scaling up.

Our @UConnNeag's own Dr. Todd Campbell and team had created #STEM lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school students to incorporate this project into curriculum.

Our champions? @SenatorJulie, @LeeperforFairfield [Rep Jen Leeper], @MattLesser, @LGSusanB, and @repcurrey [Rep Jeff Currey], and Eniola!

After meeting with the legislative champions, they proposed state funding to scale up our @UConn program for every classroom in CT.

We waited, and reviewed the progress with Eniola. She asked what she could do to help and offered to write to the legislators involved in the funding proposal.

3 years, 2 months, and 1 day after it all started from an exam room at the @UConnHealth #MSCenter...

today.uconn.edu/2024/10/uconn-…

nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mid…

And the next chapter is about to be written! More to come, including details to the story that time did not permit.

Changing health policy IS possible! Drop me a line to hear more or for ??s or comments. 💪

Tremendous thanks to Dr. Kristina Wagstrom PhD (Engineering), Dr. Misti Zamora PhD (Public Health), Dr. Jessica Hollenbach PhD (CT Childrens, Asthma Director) Dr. Doug Brugge (Public Health), PhD, Dr. Bruce Gould, MD (Medicine) Dr. Todd Campbell, PhD (Education), and Dr. Angela Starkweather, PhD, (Nursing).