The Central Valley
Of California
The Central Valley is a vast agricultural hub where a variety of specialty crops are grown and commercialized by the farming industry. Due to year-round abundance of sunlight and the redirection of water systems, the Central Valley has the power to feed the world! On the other hand, the landscape of the The Central Valley is plagued with bad air quality from auto transit, livestock, pesticide application, and wildfire smoke. Over the last few years, the Magzamen Lab group has investigated the environmental impacts on community health in rural areas by measuring air quality and pesticide exposure of agricultural workers, their families and the neighboring homes of farming properties.
Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide considered to be a moderate human neurotoxin that was banned from crop field application in the state of California in December 2020. The change in legislation allowed an opportunity to conduct a prospective
cross-sectional study on the associated risk of exposure to chlorpyrifos and other potentially harmful pesticides.
What are the air pollutant levels inside your home and from the air you breathe?
This study aims to investigate just that by cross referencing the newly designed UPAS device to the Cassela air samplers.
Real-time exposure to harmful chemicals rarely occurs in isolated incidents. By measuring biomarkers in urine, we can determine inflammatory responses due to multiple xenobiotic exposures.