Personal Summary

Ethan Walker is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public and Community Health Sciences at the University of Montana. His research focuses on assessing the health effects of air pollution and testing intervention strategies aimed at reducing air pollution exposures and improving health in vulnerable populations. His work emphasizes the use of low-cost sensors and data science methods to study air pollution in field settings. Ethan has a PhD in Environmental Health with a specialization in Epidemiology (Colorado State University), a master’s degree in public health (Colorado School of Public Health), and a bachelor’s degree in nursing (University of Kansas School of Nursing).

Education

PhD, Environmental Health and Epidemiology, Colorado State University, 2019

MPH, Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health, 2017

BSN, University of Kansas School of Nursing, 2010

Courses Taught

PUBH 691: Data Science and Research Methods Using R

This course is designed for graduate students in public health and other disciplines to learn data science and management techniques using the R programming language. Specific topics covered in the course include exploring, cleaning, and manipulating data, data visualization, summarizing and analyzing data using basic applied statistical methods, reproducible workflows in research, and ethical research practices for working with data. The course is designed to guide students with little to no coding experience through beginner and intermediate level data management techniques in R. However, students with previous coding and/or R experience will also find the course helpful in refining their R skills and learning new and more advanced techniques. The course will prepare students for more advanced courses in statistics and epidemiology, as well as for research-based projects, thesis projects, dissertations, and jobs/careers that require knowledge of data management and analytical techniques.

Research Interests

Health effects of air pollution, particularly among vulnerable populations

Indoor air pollution with a focus on biomass fuel sources such as wood stoves and wildfires

Cardiovascular health outcomes including arrhythmias and blood pressure

Interest in quantitative methods, biostatistics, and data science

Projects

Current Projects:

• Wildfires and arrhythmias: evaluating associations and intervention strategies
  • Purpose: As wildfires continue to increase across the United States, there is a critical need for the development and evaluation of intervention strategies that reduce wildfire exposures and improve health outcomes. We are collaborating with a local cardiovascular clinic to assess associations between air pollution and cardiovascular arrhythmias and to develop and evaluate a household-level air pollution intervention program. The proposed work will inform a future randomized trial to assess the efficacy of the intervention program at lowering air pollution exposures and decreasing cardiovascular arrhythmias.
  • Role: PI
• BREATHE UM Central Site Startup
  • Purpose: Acute viral bronchiolitis is the most common reason for hospitalization of infants in the United States. Children hospitalized for bronchiolitis are at high risk for adverse respiratory outcomes for which there are no effective secondary prevention strategies. Improvement of indoor air quality may improve post-bronchiolitis health outcomes. The primary objective of the Bronchiolitis Recovery through HEPA (BREATHE) clinical trial is to determine if use of a HEPA filtration home intervention reduces the respiratory symptom burden over 24 weeks compared to a use of a control filter. The UM Central site is leading management of all equipment and indoor air quality data for BREATHE. 
  • Role: Co-I

Projects in Development:

• Increasing climate change resilience at skilled nursing facilities in the mountain west by enhancing wildfire smoke readiness
  • Purpose: We are developing a proposal to characterize indoor air quality and implement a comprehensive smoke management plan among skilled nursing facilitie. The project aims to increase healthcare resilience, specifically among skilled nursing facilities in the Mountain West dealing with wildfire smoke impacts due to climate change.
  • Role: MPI

Field of Study

Environmental Epidemiology

Publications

List of publications on Google Scholar