Air quality monitoring where young children spend the most time

Idea for Action Summary

Air quality is a global problem, but also a hyper-local one; it can differ markedly from street to street.

Targeted interventions around the places where pregnant women, young children and caregivers spend the most time, such as childcare facilities or preschools, can reduce exposure to air pollution. These include traffic calming, greening streets, proposing alternative walking routes that avoid heavy traffic and street and building design solutions that increase air flow.

Cities need data about where babies, toddlers and caregivers spend the most time, and about air quality in these locations. Engaging families in community-based air monitoring, and sampling air quality at children’s head height in the right places, can help design interventions for short-term localised impact while waiting for larger-scale air quality strategies to kick in.