Designing field experiments to tackle real-world environmental and social challenges

Project Leader

Dr. Ludovica Gazze

Project Outline

Air pollution—both ambient and indoor-- is the top environmental risk to health (World Health Organization). Although air pollution is a growing research topic, very few studies focus on residential air quality in cities of the developing world. This is particularly important in Latin America where 80% of the population is urban, and on average, people spent 58% of their time indoors at home in our pilot. Documenting the extent of air pollution in low-income urban homes in Mexico City and its effects will provide an understanding of the scale of the problem. Evidence on the policy interventions that can overcome barriers to improving residential air quality in low-income households provides an opportunity to reduce health and economic inequalities across households in fast-developing cities of highly polluted and unequal countries like Mexico, India, and China.

This project addresses the following research questions:

1. What is the level of air pollution in a low-income home in Mexico City?
2. What are the most important correlates of indoor air quality in this sample?

Project Aims:

The aim of this project is to understand determinants of residential indoor air quality in a high-pollution setting and understand the determinants of individual avoidance behaviour.

Internship Objectives:

To clean, analyse, and visualise survey and air quality monitor data to answer the research questions.

Brief Description of Work:

1. Support with partner relationship management
2. Clean RCT data (survey and sensor data)
3. Analyse RCT data
4. Visualise RCT data
5. Draft report with preliminary analysis and literature reviews
6. Attend weekly meeting with supervisor and broader research team to discuss project updates and next steps

Project tasks require access to a computer with standard Office software, so if working remotely you will need to have your own access to a suitable work environment and such computer facilities. Part of the role may include phone conversations with project partners. If these will create additional costs beyond your existing phone plane, I will arrange reimbursement of additional expenses subject to the provision of evidence of these additional costs.

Intended Learning Outcomes and Work Benefits:

In carrying out the above-mentioned task, we expect that you will gain:

• Communication skills
• Ability to work in a team
• Ability to research economic concepts and apply them to real-world setting
• Basic analysis skills

Who can apply?

Anyone

Logistics:

Communications with supervisor will occur primarily via email, to ensure ease of regular communication. Weekly check-ins will ensure progress monitoring and timely resolution of any potential issues that might arise.

You will work per the WISE specifications, flexibly, with core hours expected 9am-5pm Mon-Fri (with a one-hour lunchbreak), or as agreed with the supervisor. On joining the project team, I will provide an induction briefing into the wider policy context, the overall project the work fits into, and how your work will contribute both to the project research goals and to having a practical impact on the UK policy landscape.

Required Skills

• Demonstrated ability to manage time and tasks, and high attention to detail
• Excellent organization of work materials and note-taking
• Reasonable understanding of economic papers
• Coding ability in R or STATA (data cleaning, analysis, visualization)

Desirable Skills

• Excellent interpersonal skills, ability to communicate effectively and confidently at all levels and to different audiences, including project leads, project team members and partner organisations.
• Ability to work with a wide variety of stakeholders
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Fluency in written and spoken English