Educating UMD about Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes

Presenter: Sanjana Umashankar, Psychology, Global Public Health Scholars

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For my practicum, I worked in the School of Public Health with the Public Health Aerobiology Laboratory (PHAB Lab) here at the University of Maryland. I was part of the team that worked with Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes and studied how they could be incorporated into our communities. Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes can be used to filter the air of airborne pathogens and help purify the air. If these boxes spread to households and public areas, the spread of airborne pathogens can be significantly reduced and can help stop of spread of illnesses such as the flu, COVID, etc. While working with the PHAB Lab, I focused on leading builds with different groups of students where our team educated them on the importance and role of Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes when it came to airborne illnesses. During these builds, we gave out surveys where we collected data on things such as feedback on the builds, how well students could retain information about the boxes, how often they would use their boxes, etc. Surveys were given pre and post builds and after all the data was collected, I analyzed it and presented it to our team. Through these builds and data analysis, we could see how Corsi Rosenthal Boxes could be incorporated into people's lives and how we could expand this out of our communities and into the broader world.