When Lisa Walker started working as an athletic trainer at Springville High School 33 years ago, she had clear guidelines for extreme heat and lightning—but when the air itself became dangerous to breathe, she was on her own. "If there was a rule [on handling bad air quality], my coaches would follow it, but without rules, it's hard to enforce regulations without set rules," she told researchers.
That's beginning to change, thanks to an ambitious project at the University of Utah that is quietly revolutionizing how Utah's high schools protect young athletes from invisible threats. Researchers have equipped more than 50 high schools with air quality sensors that transmit readings every two minutes to a cloud database, giving athletic trainers real-time data to make life-saving decisions about whether students should practice indoors or out.
The effort stems from a troubling reality: at least 100,000 Utah teens at 160 high schools participate in sports overseen by the Utah High School Activities Association, with many more competing in outdoor activities like mountain biking and ultimate frisbee. During Utah's winter inversions, summer ozone spikes, and increasingly intense wildfire seasons, these athletes often find themselves huffing air that could do their lungs more harm than the exercise does good.
"It is a small sample, but the goal was to understand some of the dynamics that athletic trainers face when making decisions around air quality for the well-being of their students," said Sara Yeo, a University of Utah communications professor who co-authored new research exploring these challenges. Her team interviewed 16 athletic trainers across Utah via Zoom, finding that the ability to protect students often depends on where decision-making power sits within individual districts.
The sensor project, led by chemical engineering professor Kerry Kelly and funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to place monitors at every Utah high school. Real-time readings are already available at AQandU.org. All five high schools in the Nebo School District have joined the effort, which is also expanding to measure contaminants at preschools and day care centers—protecting the youngest lungs too.
The research and the sensor network are laying groundwork for the kind of uniform policies trainers like Walker have long wished for. When that day comes, she'll have something concrete to hand to coaches. For now, she's part of a growing movement turning raw data into decisions that keep Utah's student athletes breathing a little easier.