# High efficiency particulate air cleaner intervention to reduce respiratory virus exposure in elementary schools

> **NIH NIH R21** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2024 · $215,387

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
There is a fundamental gap in understanding the extent to which the school environment contributes to
respiratory virus exposure, and less is known about effective environmental interventions to reduce exposure.
Our long-term goal is to create healthy indoor school environments for children. The overall objective of this
application is to identify environmental predictors of and potential interventions influencing respiratory virus
exposure in elementary schools. We will extend the robust infrastructure of the School Inner-City Asthma
Intervention Study (SICAS-2, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02291302), a five-year randomized controlled trial
conducted by our group of a placebo-controlled classroom high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) cleaner
intervention to continue cohort recruitment in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period. We will test our central
hypothesis that modifiable built environment factors influence airborne respiratory virus exposure and infection
in elementary schools through the following specific aims: (1) To determine the efficacy of a randomized
placebo controlled HEPA cleaner intervention in reducing classroom airborne respiratory virus exposure; (2) To
determine the efficacy of a randomized placebo controlled HEPA cleaner intervention in reducing symptomatic
and asymptomatic respiratory viral infections in asthmatic children. The approach is innovative, because we
are simultaneously interrogating all major human respiratory viruses in the context of a school-based
randomized trial focused on an environmental intervention. The proposed research is significant, because if the
HEPA intervention can reduce respiratory virus exposure and infections in schools, it is an immediately
actionable and practical intervention to create safer indoor environments for elementary school children.
Results from this proposal may be generalizable to other public indoor settings.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10885171
- **Project number:** 5R21AI178155-02
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Peggy Sue Lai
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $215,387
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-07-10 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10885171

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10885171, High efficiency particulate air cleaner intervention to reduce respiratory virus exposure in elementary schools (5R21AI178155-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10885171. Licensed CC0.

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