‘Strengthening Personal Air Pollution Monitoring and Environmental Exposure Assessment of Women in the HeLTI India Cohort of Mysuru, South India’ by Dr. Shruthi Mahalingaiah

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – India Research Center is providing seed grant funding to support faculty-led research on public health in India. For the year 2025-26, the grant has been awarded to Dr. Shruthi Mahalingaiah for her project on “Strengthening Personal Air Pollution Monitoring and Environmental Exposure Assessment of Women in the HeLTI India Cohort of Mysuru, South India.”

Dr. Shruti Mahalingaiah, MD, MS, is the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive and Women’s Health in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an attending physician in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Massachusetts General Hospital. As physician-epidemiologist, her work bridges clinical care, population science, and environmental epidemiology to understand how environmental and modifiable risk factors shape reproductive, cardiometabolic, and gynecologic health across the life course.

The seed-grant funded project aims to evaluate the discrepancy between modeled ambient air pollution exposure and daily personal air pollution exposure, through the use of personal air quality monitors and time-activity survey administration. Dr. Mahalingaiah, through this study, will also develop and pilot test a survey-based exposure assessment to evaluate participant-level environmental exposures during the preconception period, with urine biomarker correlation.

The study began in November 2025 and is scheduled for completion in March 2027. By developing culturally relevant tools for capturing individual-level exposure (surveys) and understanding the differences between ambient and personal level exposures for village women, this study will address a critical gap in exposure assessment. The outcomes of this research will add an environmental exposure assessment to the broader Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (HeLTI) India cohort of 6,000 women and environmental exposure assessment in rural/tribal Indian populations.