Imagine a Pollution Monitor That Checks Your Vital Signs A bus just passed by. I think I have a headache. This is the sort of inane information that the most tweet-happy among us rush to share with the rest of the indifferent world. But when collected in a detailed, systematic manner and compiled in a central database, it's also the sort of information that the Environmental Protection Agency desperately needs to get a handle on to fully understand the links between air pollution and public health. The E.P.A., the National Institute of Health Services and the Department of Health and Human Services are sponsoring a nationwide competition for the invention of a personal portable air pollution sensor that can also monitor a person's physiological response to the contaminants in real time. The contest, called the My Air, My Health Challenge, carries a $15,000 prize for each of four finalists and a $100,000 prize for the one that emerges as the winner. "There has never been a direct, simultaneous measurement of what people are actually breathing - the nose-level exposure - and measurements of how their body is reacting - heart rate, lung function - to those pollutants," said Glenn Paulson, the E.P.A."s science adviser. Historically, research on air pollution and public health have effect has been conducted on separate but parallel tracks. One set of studies involves exposing lab animals or humans in a highly controlled manner to individual air pollutants and tracking the effects. The other line of research involves taking detailed measurements of air pollution over wide geographic areas, with averages calculated over days or weeks. The challenge is to measure both at the same time wherever people happen to be - which usually isn't on police station roofs, where air quality monitors tend to be installed. The competition is also designed to draw attention to the groups most vulnerable to air pollution. "We've got a pretty good grasp on how healthy white males respond," Dr. Paulson said. But that's not the demographic that ends up in hospital during severe air pollution events. We want a device that can be used by the elderly, children, expecting mothers and people with pre-existing health conditions. The E.P.A. has a long history of sponsoring technical innovations to help collect the data it needs, but Dr. Paulson views that as the beginning of a new chapter in environmental health research. "We see this as the first of what we hope will be a series of similar initiatives that will focus on real people in the real world who are exposed to a complex suite of chemicals every day," he said. We need similar ways to study water quality, radiation and exposure to chemicals from household products. "The technical building blocks are out there," he added. They just need to be put together.