Street-level air pollution in Asian cities likely worse than thought, and getting worse

Is the health of commuters and roadside workers more at risk from air pollutants than has been commonly believed?

Yes, it probably is, said Asian, American and Australian scientists who concluded a recent meeting in Bangkok by calling for more research into the effect of air pollution on people commuting, living and working at street level in Asia’s growing cities.

“Surveys have shown that street level pollution of particulate matter, the most damaging urban pollutant, can be two to four times higher than that routinely measured on top of buildings,” said Dr. Sumeet Saksena, a research fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Like other cities around the world, Asian cities rely primarily on a few air pollution monitoring sites that are usually situated on rooftops. According to the researchers, these stations do not adequately measure what people are exposed to at street level, where exhaust and dust from vehicles pollute the air they breathe.

Particulate matter, carbon monoxide, benzene, ozone and other pollutants are found in high concentrations in street-level air in cities like Bangkok, Hanoi, Beijing, and Jakarta. A major source of these pollutants is road traffic, which is projected to increase rapidly with escalating urbanization in developing Asian countries.

This was the conclusion of researchers at the November workshop on “Near-Roadway and On-Road Exposures to Air Pollution: Risk Communication and Decision Making,” organized by the East-West Center and the Asian Institute of Technology and funded by U.S. National Science Foundation, the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center, and SwissContact. Workshop participants included a unique team of physical and social scientists and representatives of government and private companies.

“We need to know more about the air that people are actually breathing at street level,” said Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, environmental researcher at the Asian Institute of Technology.

The scientists said they want to see more research targeted on the individuals they believe are most vulnerable to the harmful effects of street-level air pollution, including daily commuters as well as people whose work requires them to spend significant time on roads, such as bus drivers, policemen and street vendors.

“We have to get down to the roadway level to understand the effects of pollution on people’s health,” said Dr. Paul Roberts, a researcher at Sonoma Technology, Inc. in California. “And we need to push the development of technology to more accurately measure the harmful chemicals people are breathing.”

That concern was echoed by Dr. Vitaya Vajanapoom of the Faculty of Public Health at Thailand’s Thammasat University, who has participated in major air pollution and health research projects in Bangkok. She called for better exposure data to be collected at street level to reduce deaths and sickness due to pollution.

In addition, the 30 experts and graduate students gathered at the meeting proposed several research projects designed to better communicate the risks of street-level air pollution to policymakers and other stakeholders and help them make decisions.

“Efforts to communicate air pollution risks need to be sensitive to the cultural context in which the message is imparted,” said Dr. Melissa Finucane, a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center and a specialist in risk communication and decision-making. “Risk information needs to be easy to understand and relevant, communicators need to be trustworthy, and people need to feel they can take meaningful actions.”

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The EAST-WEST CENTER is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations and the governments of the region.

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