Episode 1: What are VOCs?

Suzie and Grandma are taking a walk in their neighborhood, when our little "future scientist" explains what volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are and how they can impact our health.

This animation series is a CLEAR collaboration with undergraduate students in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University.

ABOUT CLEAR: CLEAR is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Superfund Research Program (SRP). The center is dedicated to understanding and mitigating adverse birth outcomes and serious developmental health problems that have been associated with urban environmental exposure to volatile organic chemicals or VOCs, a special class of pollutants found in the subsurface of post-industrial cities like Detroit MI. Sadly, Detroit has the highest preterm birth rate in the country (15.2%), and up to 37 of the 67 Superfund sites in Michigan must manage VOC contamination.

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