The Case for Closing Global Air Quality Data Gaps with Local Actors A Golden Opportunity for the Philanthropic Community

Fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) is the greatest external threat to public health with the average person on the planet losing more than 2 years of life expectancy according to the Air Quality Life Index, with the loss even higher at 3.1 years outside of OECD countries.
 

Why is reliable air quality monitoring so important for addressing air pollution? The history of progress on air pollution in countries including Japan, the United States, England, and China, reveals that improvements in air quality were preceded by the public demanding improvements and causing air quality to become a political priority. The foundation for these demands was data that illustrated the depth of the problem and then, later, data to assess progress. Thus, our theory of change is that closing air quality data gaps can allow people to lead healthier and longer lives.
 

The report outlines:
• Why closing air quality data gaps is a key catalytic step for reducing the most human health-harming outdoor air pollutant, PM2.5. (Section 1);
• The countries with the largest opportunities for a small, well-supported effort to effect positive national-level changes by closing data gaps, (Section 2);
• The local actors who are well-poised to close these gaps (Section 3); and
• Four guiding tenets for philanthropies on how to inject more resources into the space in a maximally effective way (Section 4).