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The Challenge
Air pollution is a major global environmental health risk, causing an estimated seven million deaths across the globe annually. Your challenge is to take an interdisciplinary approach, using both Earth science and health science, and integrate different types of datasets and applications to study the effects of air pollution.
Background:
Air pollution has been recognized as the largest global environmental health risk, causing an estimated seven million deaths across the globe annually according to the World Health Organization (2020). Depending on the selected discipline, scientists and decision-makers view air pollution using different datasets (e.g., Earth-observing satellite data, public health surveillance records, interviews, and focus groups) and applications (e.g., research presentations and manuscripts, public health education, and social media technology).
During severe socio-economic dislocations, such as have occurred due to COVID-19, there is an opportunity to develop a better understanding of links between air quality and human health. However, this kind of investigation requires us to integrate those different approaches to the study of air pollution.
Your challenge is to take an interdisciplinary approach, using both Earth science and health science, and integrate different types of datasets and applications to study the effects of air pollution. Can you examine links between changing air quality due to COVID-19 mitigation strategies and associated impacts on human health?
Potential Considerations:
● How can the COVID-19 pandemic help researchers and the public better understand the relationship between air pollution and public health?
● Are you focusing on outdoor or indoor air pollution, or both?