Last month I reviewed the importance of all of us engaging in scientifically rigorous advocacy at the local level. But how do we do that? Every county and town in the US does not always have a scientist or an economist living there that can tell us how much air pollution is costing us locally. Fortunately, there are powerful tools that can help. In this post, I highlight the Health of the Air Report released just last month by the American Thoracic Society and the Marron Institute. Knowing how pollution can affect your local community, and, bluntly, how many people in your city and state are dying of pollution can help one appreciate the scale and potential benefit to your area of cleaning up the air.
Dr. Laura Gladson received her pHD from New York University’s Environmental Health Sciences department and has been a researcher with the Health, Environment, and Policy Program at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management since 2014. Her work focuses on translating air quality research into meaningful tools for community leaders and environmental managers, working towards greater health equity at the local and global levels. Her research has been funded by NASA and the Environmental Defense Fund, and she has received awards for academic scholarship from the American Thoracic Society and the Air & Waste Management Association. Dr. Gladson is the lead analyst of the American Thoracic Society’s annual, peer-reviewed Health of the Air report, now in its fifth year, and we discussed it on the podcast episode accompanying this post. We cover some of the startling statistics about the toll of air pollution and ozone as well as the estimates for wildfire specific mortality.
I sincerely appreciate the work of Dr. Gladson and NYU and the American Thoracic Society to help bring what seems like a large abstract problem down to our local and state level. I know I repeat myself often on this topic, but I think there is so much that can be done at a local level if we all raise our voices. I think most people want to live in a clean and healthy environment and will participate in creating one. If we all find out what the local impact of air pollution where we live is, whether from the Health of the Air report, the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report, or even our local DEQ sensors, we can work in our local communities to clean up the air.
TLDR= Don't Light Things on Fire and Breathe them into your Lungs
To Do–
1- Go to the Health of the Air report to see how impacted your state or county is by air pollution. There is a list by each state at the end of the report. Contact your representatives at every level to see what can be done. Listen to last month’s episode “Clean Air and Climate Advocacy for Busy People” to learn how to get started.
2- Check the report to see how impacted your state or county is is by wildland fire smoke, and make a plan for protection. Listen to the “Our Health in Wildfire Season” episode to learn more about how to do that. You can also learn more about controlled burns and protecting your home from wildfire in the “Fighting Fire with Fire episode.”
3- You can learn more about ozone from Dr. Nassikas in the “True Cost of Ozone” episode from last season and more about PM2.5 from a host of episodes, including the “What’s in a Standard” episode with Dan Costa from Season 2 and “What’s burning” episode with Dr. Goobie from Season three.
4- To learn more about personal tools with regards to air pollution, learn more about the Air Quality Index in the “What’s in an Index” episode.
5- Consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, which funds excellent research like that behind the Health of the Air Report and also advocates for clean air and healthier air quality standards.
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