The December 2nd, 2025 Calumet Revisited forum will offer perspectives on several ongoing health-focused research efforts in the Calumet region.
Dr. Susan Duncan, a researcher with the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago, says these studies seek to better understand regional air, water and soil pollution in ways that enable both community members and researchers to benefit from collaborative, “community science” endeavors.
The meeting begins via Zoom at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2. Please advise if you wish to participate and we will send you a link on Monday, December 1.
A focus of the presentation will be a pilot project to establish a small-scale but comprehensive grid of low-cost air quality monitors across Chicago’s East Side community (roughly, S. 93rd to S. 118th Street; the Calumet River to Illinois-Indiana state line). A grid of this kind enables “hyper-local” monitoring of air pollution.
With such spatially and temporally precise monitoring, accurate identification of pollution hotspots becomes possible. A tandem environmental health goal of the pilot project was to investigate the relationship between air pollution hotspots and instances of child asthma attacks.
A community organization partner was involved from the beginning, when the study design was still being refined. Once the study received funding, this partner took the lead in distributing air quality monitors to interested community members and following up to collect data.
The whole effort (planning, implementation, outcomes) has demonstrated both the potential and the challenges inherent in doing community science in our region. Lessons learned and planned next steps will be discussed.
At the University, Dr. Duncan works as staff scientist and Assistant Director of Scientific Communication at the Center for Innovation in Global Health (https://cgh.uchicago.edu/). The Center’s mission is to “collaborate with communities locally and globally to democratize education, increase service learning opportunities, and advance novel, transdisciplinary, and sustainable solutions to improve health and well-being while reducing global health disparities and inequities.”
Calumet Revisited has shed light on the region since 2013. It is jointly sponsored by the Association for the Wolf Lake Initiative (AWLI) and Calumet College of St. Joseph.
Adult Nest photos by David Gruver
AWLI is a not-for-profit organization and land trust seeking to protect and enhance the thousands of acres that comprise the Wolf Lake watershed. The watershed serves a population base of 3.4 million in Northwest Indiana and Southeast Chicago and suburbs.
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