De vierde spreker van de 15de Horta info avond van Ademloos en stRaten-generaal: professor Ben Barrat van Kings College, Londen, over luchtkwaliteit, actie en participatie: making it real. Op deze 'special edition' van 5 oktober 2014 vertelden 4 professoren en gerenommeerde EU experten over luchtkwaliteit, voor een nokvolle Horta zaal. De 4 professoren zijn allemaal verbonden aan het EU project SEFIRA (SOCIO ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSES TO AIR POLLUTION POLICIES IN EU).

1. Air quality - action and participation
Ben Barratt, King’s College London
SEFIRA Public Lecture, 2nd October 2014, Antwerp

2. “Poor air quality probably causes more mortality and morbidity than passive smoking, road traffic accidents or obesity. Yet it receives little or no attention in the media and scant attention in Parliament.” [House of Commons, 2010]
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WHY?

3. How air quality is often presented…
Legislation-based
Complex
Potentially misleading
Impersonal
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4. Engage, educate and empower…
•Air pollution is a poorly understood as a public health risk
-Contrast with other public health risks such as water quality, smoking, obesity.
•Social justice - the public are entitled to know how they can reduce their own risk of harm
•As with all public health issues, we have to engage, educate and empower communities and individuals
•The problem needs to be explained on a personal level
•Most current methods of information dissemination are not achieving this
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5. Barrier number 1: “Show me someone who has been killed by air pollution”
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6. We are all being ‘killed’…
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Low birth weight
Smaller lungs
Cognitive ability?
Increased risk of chronic disease Acute respiratory exacerbations
Acute and chronic Premature death

7. Barrier number 2: “There’s nothing I can do to avoid air pollution, so I prefer not to think about it (its not my problem)”
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8. Making it personal (but avoidable)
•“Once the public have been convinced that air pollution poses a risk to their own, and their family’s health, they need to be given hope, or they will disengage”1
•It is now relatively easy to demonstrate that there are simple things that we can do to reduce our exposure to air pollution
•In so doing, the second barrier can be overcome
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1Kilbane-Dawe et al, 2014

9. Making it personal (but avoidable)
•Example 1: Making air pollution ‘visible’ and relevant
•Example 2: Providing choice
•Example 3: Increasing awareness
•Example 4: Informing and improving
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10. Mobile or personal monitoring
•New technology allowing personal exposure to air pollution to be illustrated
•A rapidly developing field, to be used with caution

11. Example 1 – Making air pollution ‘visible’
•Particulate pollution (black carbon) and GPS monitors provided to seven volunteers for the same 24 hour period
•Afterwards, the results were presented to the community group and were immediately recognisable and personal
 Toddler
 School pupil
 Office worker
 Home worker
 Cycle courier
 Ambulance driver
 Pensioner
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Lowest
Highest (2.5 times higher)
Which had the lowest and highest exposure?...

12. Travel
Central
Walk
Travel Central Walk
Nursery Central Natural ventilation
Home Inner Natural ventilation

13. Home
Suburban
(natural ventilation)
Office Central (mechanical ventilation)
Travel (lunch) Central Walk
Travel
Central to Suburban
Tube, Rail, Walk
Travel
Central
Walk, Tube
Office Central
Guy’s Hospital!

14. School pupil travelling to/from school
Bus to school along main roads
Walk from school along back roads
School in suburban location
Home close to the A2

15. Example 2 – providing choice
•Short experiment carried out with ITV News looking at air pollution exposure when cycling in London
•CityAir app used to select low and high pollution routes from Streatham to Grays Inn
•We both set off at the same time with GPS, PM2.5 and black carbon monitors
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16. Cycle route exposure - results
•We both arrived at ITN offices at the same time
•Overall, BC and PM2.5 was reduced by 75% by cycling low exposure route (20.2 μg/m3 vs 7.0 μg/m3)
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(PM2.5 at Marylebone Road has reduced by <20% in 10 years)

17. Example 3 – raising awareness
•Project proposed and designed by residents association concerned about children walking along a busy road
•Aimed to raise awareness of primary school children of air pollution issues and their own exposure
•Two classes discussed how they travel to school and chose two routes, then monitored pollution levels themselves along each on their way to and from school
•We provided monitors, technical advice and data processing
•We will evaluate lasting impact and behavioural change as evidence for other schools (e.g. travel plans)
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18. 18
long
lat
51.466
51.468
51.470
51.472
51.474
51.476
-0.105 -0.100 -0.095 -0.090 -0.085
School to Myatt's Fields via Camberwell Green
-0.105 -0.100 -0.095 -0.090 -0.085
School to Myatt's Fields via Ruskin Park
BC
2
4
6
8
10
12
long
lat
51.456
51.458
51.460
51.462
-0.082 -0.080 -0.078 -0.076 -0.074
School to Melbourne Grove 1
-0.082 -0.080 -0.078 -0.076 -0.074
School to Melbourne Grove 2
BC
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5

19. Example 4 - Informing and improving
•Film made by Client Earth and Vivienne Westwood
•Highlighted personal exposure in relation to travel modes
•The same route in London:
 Bicycle
 Pedestrian
 Bus
 Car
•Plus two ‘low exposure’ routes
•www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2014/aug/12/london-air-pollution-public-transport-video
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20. Example 4 - Informing and improving
•Walking and cycling not only produces less pollution, but also exposes you to less.
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21. Engage, Educate, Empower
Change
Behaviour
Reduce
Exposure
Improve
Individual Health
Air Quality, Action and Participation
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Increase
Acceptibility
Improve Air
Quality
Improve Public
Health

22. Members of Parliament for Southampton, Stoke on Trent and Hendon
And what of the EAC, four years on…?