UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sefi Roth, associate professor of environmental economics in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, will give the talk, “Making the invisible visible: The impact of revealing indoor air pollution on behavior and welfare,” at noon on Wednesday, March 5, in 515 Welch Building on the University Park campus.
“Exposure to ambient air pollution has been shown to be detrimental to human health and productivity and has motivated many policies to reduce such pollution,” Roth said. “However, given that humans spend 90% of their time indoors, it is important to understand the degree of exposure to indoor air pollution (IAP), and, if high, ways to reduce it.”
Roth designed and implemented a field experiment in London that monitored households’ IAP and then randomly revealed their IAP in real-time. He found that average baseline IAP was worse than ambient air pollution when residents were at home and that for 38% of the time, IAP is above World Health Organization standards. Additionally, lower-income households experience greater exposure than wealthier households.
Roth also found that providing households with real-time feedback reduced IAP by 34% during occupancy time, as households mainly took action to increase their natural ventilation by opening doors and windows. During his talk, he will discuss additional findings such as households’ willingness to pay to reduce IAP and to receive information about indoor air quality.
Roth’s research focuses on the economics of air pollution, examining the effects of both ambient and indoor air pollution on health, human capital, crime, the housing market, and the broader economy. Roth holds a doctorate in economics from Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI) was established in 2011 with the goal of promoting policy-relevant economics research that lies at the boundary between economic sciences and the study of natural or engineered systems. The EEEPI initiative is focused primarily on the union between energy systems and environmental management and the development of quantitative tools to address decision challenges in these areas. View more information on EEEPI.