NCT05953233

School Inner City Air Study

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 200 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 6 Years – 90 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The goal of this randomized clinical trial is to test the efficacy of high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) cleaners in reducing respiratory viral exposure and infections in elementary school classrooms. Classrooms will be randomized to active vs. sham HEPA cleaners. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Do classroom HEPA cleaners reduce exposure to viruses? * Do classroom HEPA cleaners reduce student and teacher infections? * Do classroom HEPA cleaners reduce infections in family members?

Detailed description

Classrooms from participating schools will be randomized to active vs. sham HEPA cleaners. From enrolled classrooms, we will enroll students, teachers, and members of the household. We will collect the following: * longitudinal classroom air samples * longitudinal upper respiratory samples * longitudinal symptom surveys using the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS) Viral testing on collected air and respiratory samples will be performed using digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR).

Conditions

• Viral Infection

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Active classroom HEPA cleaner	Commercially available portable HEPA cleaner
OTHER	Sham classroom HEPA cleaner	Commercially available portable HEPA cleaner with filtration device removed

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-09-15
• Primary completion: 2029-08-01
• Completion: 2030-08-01
• First posted: 2023-07-20
• Last updated: 2025-12-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States