Globally, air pollution is responsible for 1 in 6 premature deaths, making it the world’s most significant environmental risk factor for disease and premature death, which disproportionately harms residents of low and middle-income countries. Alarming statistics from the latest AQLI June 2022 Annual Report revealed that 97.3 percent of the world’s population is breathing air that is deemed unsafe by the World Health Organization guidelines. 

So, how do we address this global health crisis that has become the biggest silent killer of our times?  

Any significant progress in tackling air pollution would, at the minimum, require four actions working in unison: 

Serious action on the government’s part in increasing air pollution monitoring coverage

Whether or not countries have any AAQS (ambient air quality standards) embedded in national air quality governance systems is critical in understanding which countries are serious about tackling this global health crisis. Although there is a global trend for legislating for AAQS, according to UNEP’s Regulating Air Quality: the First Global Assessment of Air Pollution Legislation 2021 report, 34% of the countries have no legislative instruments containing AAQS. Moreover, according to  OpenAQ’s Open Air Quality Data: The Global Landscape 2022 report, 39 percent of the countries don’t even have a single government-sponsored (or government-led) air quality monitoring program at the national or sub-national level.

Making air pollution data openly accessible, maximally useful, and user-friendly

Another significant aspect of air quality governance is openly accessible data in a maximally useful format, which is analysis ready. According to OpenAQ’s Open Air Quality Data: The Global Landscape 2022 report, 53% of the countries publicly share air quality data, but of those, less than half do so in a way that is maximally useful, which means that only about 1 in 4 countries share data in a maximally useful way. For example, many air pollution APIs (Application programming interfaces) output data in a PDF format instead of a spreadsheet format resulting in entry barriers for those who wanted to analyze the data quickly but couldn’t because it was not in an analysis-ready format. In most cases, it’s incredibly cheap to do this, as it’s just a matter of making already available data public.

Furthermore, converting research papers into interactive platforms that allow anyone (especially air quality practitioners, >50 percent of whom rely on internet resources for making crucial decisions) to explore the underlying data through various visualizations and summary tables makes it more likely for them to make data and research-backed decisions. The Air Quality Life Index tool and the IHME GBD vizhub tool are two examples of air pollution/epidemiological research getting converted into interactive platforms, which are now being used by hundreds of thousands of people.

Continue reading on India Times…