Statistical investigation of the air pollution effect on the human lungs

Abstract

This study is being conducted in the University of Balamand as a part of a project on the investigation of the aerosol effect on the human lungs. This multidisciplinary research is part of collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Sciences. The objective of the study is to shed the light on the paramount influence that air pollution has in our daily life, and the modeling of particles in the human lungs. To achieve the first objective, a survey was conducted at the main campus of the University of Balamand. In order to examine the exposure of students, faculty and staff to air pollution and their concern about this issue, we designed a survey consisting of 4 parts: Air pollution and smoking, Health, Background information and Two tests: Control Pause test and O2 percentage using an oximeter. In this presentation we focus on the statistical part of the project: we discuss the sampling methods and the data analysis. Different methods of sampling were considered and we chose to build our sample using a Quota sampling. The obtained data are analyzed using the available qualitative and quantitative visualization techniques and Chi square tests are used to study the dependency between the different survey parameters. Acknowledgments: We acknowledge the support of Dr Oussama Jadayel, Chairperson of the mechanical engineering department, Dr Jihad Attieh, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Dr Michel Najjar, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Vice President for development, administration and public affairs. The authors would also like to thank Dr Paula Akoury (PhD in Social Sciences) for her help in the design of the statistical survey.