Air Pollution Solutions for Vulnerable Groups (CleanAir4V)

Air pollution causes 29,000 pre-mature death and cost the economy £20 billion per year in the UK alone. A majority of these impacts are associated with Vulnerable Groups (VGs), who are most strongly affected by air pollution with up to ca. 12 life years lost for the individual. Children (VGI) & people with pre-existing medical conditions (VGII) are of particular concern in terms of long-term health, societal & economic impacts. Despite this, most of the efforts in air quality improvement focuses on the general population and outdoor exposure. This leads to major gaps in understanding their exposure to key air pollutants (particularly PM1, ultrafine particles and VOCs), health risks & economic consequences, and the key challenges and mitigation options for these Vulnerable Groups.

This network will be the first step towards establishing practical air pollution solutions for Vulnerable Groups tackling a major health & economic challenge that cannot be resolved within traditional, often segregated air quality communities. It will build a new truly cross-disciplinary and self-sustaining network bringing academics with a wide spectrum of expertise ranging from economics via psychology & engineering to indoor & outdoor air pollution science together with key industrial, governmental and NGO stakeholders.

The long-term vision of the network is to develop innovative & cost-effective behaviour and technology interventions to reduce the Vulnerable Groups' future air pollution exposure, improve health & directly implement these interventions through policy advice, planning, and business innovations.

The network will be composed of 8 streams (6 Work Packages (WPs) & 2 Scoping Groups (SGs)). Collectively, it will review the state-of-the-art in our understanding on (i) the VGs' air quality challenges at the indoor/outdoor interfaces, (ii) behaviour interventions to reduce pollution exposure, (iii) technology interventions at indoor/outdoor interfaces, (iv) health benefits of interventions, and (v) economic benefits of these interventions. They will also identify the future research priorities, particularly in terms of cross-disciplinary challenges, policy & business engagement. Each of the WPs will be co-led by academics and non-academic stakeholders, with support from a core group composed of Co-Is/stakeholders with relevant expertise and their institutional critical mass.

Importantly, engagement will be co-led by the government-supported Connected Places Catapult (CPC). This will catalyse and enhance the existing engagement with decision makers and business partners to align our future research with their practical priorities. The network will carry out an initial scoping study to longlist wider contributors that can contribute expertise to networks and then shortlist key members to be directly involved in the network. The network will generate abundant opportunities for within- and cross-disciplinary exchanges through network meetings, direct face-to-face meetings with stakeholders (e.g. local authorities or key industrial partners), writing retreats, social media and webinars.

The network will also illustrate potential solutions via a pilot study informed by insight gained in the engagement (WPs 1-6) as part of the interdisciplinary Cross-WP Scoping Group and the Cross-Network Scoping Group will liaise with the other five networks to link outcomes and establish opportunities for future bid development.

This work will leave a lasting legacy of a collaborative, interdisciplinary network that will drive forward research and innovation in delivering the air pollution solutions for vulnerable groups, improving their health, and reducing the cost to the NHS and the economy.

Air Pollution is a growing concern for the general public (particularly Vulnerable Groups, VGs), a focus of media attention, and rising to the top of the policy agenda for authorities, private sector organisations involved in air quality activity, and companies committed to understanding, and mitigating, environmental impacts of their business, and the regulatory framework they operate within.

There is a demonstrated regional & national interest in delivery of best policy measures and interventions to ameliorate pollution and there is also a strong imperative to understand the likely future air quality picture, with and without interventions.

CleanAir4V will address the needs to deliver a self-sustained network that will ultimately lead to transformative impact, through costs avoided (fiscal, health and social care); improvements to practice and policy formulation on near-term and strategic timescales, new business and service opportunities, and most significantly through improved environmental air quality, and hence health and wellbeing of VGs.

The key network beneficiaries are VGs in UK and beyond. CleanAir4V will review the best available solutions for reducing air pollution impacts to VGs. It will build an interdisciplinary network that has the capacity to deliver world-leading research to develop air pollution solutions for VGs. It will also encourage cross-disciplinary thinking for the next generation of researchers that will deliver the best science needed for improving the health of VGs. This will contribute to improved wellbeing, reduce deaths by air pollution, and avoid associated economic costs - estimated to be £20b per year. These benefits accumulate over generations, most notably in the health space - illustrated through the "whole lifecourse".

The second beneficiary group are governmental depts - Environment Agency, and Local Authorities - who have contributed to the network design process to ensure the work addresses their needs, and are committed to network activities. Improving public health and wellbeing is a key work stream of the government and local authorities. The network directly addresses the one of the biggest challenges faced by the abovementioned depts. These depts will benefit from the review on the available interventions themselves, which provides best available solutions so far for them to consider in their policy making process. They will also benefit from the enhanced capacity to tackle future challenges they will face. As a result, the network will increase their future resilience, in terms of improved capability to respond to changing air quality challenges and future legislative requirements, such as the Environment Bill.

CleanAir4V will benefit the NHS e.g. project partner UHB. The NHS is under much strain due to the significant additional hospital admissions due to air pollution, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Reduced air pollution will lead to a decrease in hospital admissions, directly avoid the cost associated with the exposure.

CleanAir4V will benefit business, including project partners. It will directly benefit, through companies working in the air quality areas, through improvements in their understanding of the challenges and future business opportunities & contribute to new products/services. They will also benefit from future collaborations with academic institutions in tackling their own business priorities. Furthermore, all businesses are potentially affected by the poor health of their staff. By improving the health of their workforce, the network outcomes will eventually help to boost their business growth.

CleanAir4V will benefit general public & NGOs. The review of best available interventions will not only benefit VGs but also the general public. The information will provide additional scientific evidence to support charity work by NGOs. CleanAir4V directly supports NGOs (sustrans/British Lung Foundation) by delivering talks.