Claudia investigated the importance of relative humidity in Canadian long-term care homes (LTHCs) for her KI Senior Research Project, supported in part by the KI donor-funded Knowledge Integration Experience Award which allowed her to purchase hygrometers and WiFi gateways to measure and track data.
Here’s how she describes her experience:
Low relative humidity may impact the transmission of the coronavirus within LTCHs. The intention of my final thesis was to help provide some basis for more research to be conducted within this field to better understand why the humidity is so low, how severe the low humidity is across all Ontario nursing homes, and how this will continue to impact the body of individuals in the home: both residents and staff alike. I plan to become a nurse, and intend to continuously address the humidity concern in nursing homes in the future with the goal to help provide a meaningful solution and better research surrounding this problem.