Air Pollution and Diabetes: Modeling a Possible Intervention Through Stove Top Replacement

Objective: Model effectiveness of possible approach for diabetes prevention by reducing exposure to air pollutants by replacing gas stoves with electric ones. Methodology. Using Rstudio and data bases such as 500 Cities Project, Houston State of Health, SimplyAnalytics, American Time Use Survey, and the United States Census, we were able to construct maps to illustrate a plausible Houston with the variables significant to our hypothesis, such as income and gas stoves. Maps were compared to determine a correlation. Conclusions. Though the results were not what we expected, it showed that stove replacement may not be the best intervention to invest money into and get significant results. Reasons for the unexpected results could be that the data is not visible on the census tract level, it’s not significant for Houston, or air pollution is not as significant of a factor to diabetes as other factors.