Patricia Fabian

Dr. Fabian’s research combines expertise in housing, indoor air, respiratory infectious disease transmission, geographical information systems (GIS), and systems science thinking. In the Center for Research on Environmental & Social Stressors in Housing Across the Life Course (CRESSH) her research group constructed large geospatial databases to understand environmental health disparities related to air pollution and urban heat exposures, which are now are being applied to understand community risk factors of Covid-19 transmission. She is currently co-directing a study of heat exposure and heat vulnerability in the cities of Chelsea and East Boston (C-HEAT), applying mixed methods to understand risk factors and to support the design of climate adaptation interventions at individual, household, community, and city levels. Her research group built the first systems science model linking housing, indoor air quality, and energy use with individual, housing, and neighborhood characteristics to understand tradeoffs and interventions related to pediatric asthma (ASTHMA). Combined with expertise in respiratory virus particle generation, these models are being used to understand transmission of Covid-19 and other infectious respiratory diseases in homes and other buildings, focusing on the impact of built environment interventions on transmission, indoor air quality, and energy use.