CRST Community Exposures to Metals in The Air
The Keya Foundation is honored to be part of a collaborative education project focused on environmental health in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal (CRST) communities. This initiative is not human research, but rather a training and monitoring effort to collect current data on air pollution, specifically metals in the air we breathe.
Program Details
​The purpose of this study is to generate current outdoor air pollution information for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) communities. We partner with an Oglala Lakota College student who collects samples, and learns to analyze and report them by our partners at New York University, and the University of New Mexico. This project is funded and supported by the Environmental Protection Agency.​
Community Presentations
University partners George Thurston (NYU) and Esther Erdei (UNM), who teamed up with our OLC student intern, Eva Fielder, to present at the Youth Day Missouri Breaks Research Symposium. Students explored how particles in the air impact our health, and got a hands-on look through live demonstrations simulating both a wildfire and a dust storm.
Why This Matters
This study was developed in response to the loss of local air quality monitoring efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal is to help restore and rebuild Tribal capacity to monitor outdoor air pollution and to better understand environmental risks in our region.
Who's Involved
The Keya Foundation (Project Lead)
New York University School of Medicine
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Oglala Lakota College (Student Intern Support)