‘90 pct of world’s population breathing unhealthy air’
US Embassy conducts journalism workshop
TBy Cinatra Alvares
he Public Affairs Department at the US Embassy in Kuwait conducted a journalism workshop on ‘effective use of data in reporting on the environment, air pollution, and health’ at the Radisson Blu Hotel with Sumi Mehta, US Air Quality and Health Speaker.
At the workshop, participating journalists were given an opportunity to increase their capacity to understand and report on the global air pollution crisis in both global and local contexts. The training focused on improved journalists’ abilities to identify, understand, and translate relevant data and public health claims into compelling news articles.
Sumi Mehta, MPH PhD serves as the Senior Epidemiologist in the Global Environmental Health division of Vital Strategies, a global public health organization. She has over 18 years of experience in air pollution and health, with expertise in epidemiology, exposure assessment, comparative risk assessment, and cost-effectiveness analysis. She has extensive field experience in South, and Southeast Asia, and has also worked in Africa, East Asia, and Latin America. Previously, she has served as the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, lead scientist for the Health Effects Institute’s international program, and a health policy analyst in the Evidence and Information for Policy group of at the WHO.
Mehta began the training with an overview on Air Pollution and its impact of global health; she pointed out air pollution is the biggest global environment health risk, responsible for more than 6 million deaths in 2016. The burden of the disease falling disproportionately on vulnerable populations, especially women and children living without access to clean household energy and on people living in low and middle income countries where development and urbanization has brought increased emissions from many sources, including heavy industry and motorised transport, outpacing air pollution control and measures.
She defined air pollution as a complex mixture of gases and aerosols that include suspended solid and liquid particles. She shared that the most measured and important pollutant of concern is particle pollution or particulate matter (PM) which manifests as dust, soot, smog or smoke. Chemical components of PM vary depending on the source which include a range from motor vehicles, household fuel combustion, tobacco smoke to power generation and open burning of trash, agricultural waste and forests.
Mehta explained that particles below 2.5 microns i.e. PM2.5 are most harmful as they penetrate deep into the small airways and air sacs of the lungs, the smallest particles can even pass into the bloodstream. WHO health-based guidelines for PM2.5 is a daily average concentration of 25 μg/m3, and an annual average concentration of 10 μg/m3.
PM2.5 affects health is multiple adverse ways from leading to lung irritation which leads to increased permeability in lung tissue to increasing susceptibility to viral and bacterial pathogens leading to pneumonia in vulnerable persons who are unable to clear these infections, aggravating the severity of chronic lung diseases causing rapid loss of airway function, causing inflammation of lung tissue, resulting in the release of chemicals that impact heart function and causing changes in blood chemistry that results in clots that can cause heart attack.
Mehta also warned that air pollution affects health throughout one’s life course from prenatal effects of reduced growth and preterm birth and low birth weights to decreased lung growth reduced lung function, lower respiratory infections in early childhood and life-long impacts of chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease among adults.
90% of the world’s population is breathing unhealthy air according to estimates from the State of Global Air findings and data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation states that air pollution is responsible for over 10% of deaths in Kuwait.
Mehta also discussed several proven public health approaches to meet the challenge of reducing air pollution in the near term and promote public health such as surveillance, assessment and evaluation, best practices criteria for air quality data coverage, quality, availability, and accessibility, to improved data quality and models, media scans and public perception surveys to inform communications strategy, and clear, impactful, evidence based communication to raise awareness, increase citizen and policy resolve for action. She shared that clinician and journalist training on air pollution and engagement in clean air advocacy is also important as is policy planning and coordination, increased capacity to use, interpret and conduct air pollution HIA and improved data and transparency.
Focusing her attention on Kuwait, she shared that the desert is not the only source of pollution, apart from sand dust, oil combustion, petrochemical, industry traffic, and other regional sources.
During the training, Mehta also revealed key misperceptions on air pollution and health, discussed myths about air pollution, presented her recommendations from a South and Southeast Asia Media Scan and held a small group data interpretation exercise and a group discussion for participants to openly discuss ways for the media to strengthen coverage of air quality and impact.