Guidelines for Designing a Communication, Awareness-Raising, and Public Engagement Strategy on Air Quality and Health

What is this Guide?

Air pollution is one of the most pressing public health challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 172 million people across the region — including nearly 12 million children and 14 million older adults — are exposed to pollution levels that exceed the guidelines set by the World Health Organization. More than 35,000 deaths per year in the region are estimated to be attributable to urban air pollution, representing a loss of approximately 276,000 healthy life years.

​In the face of this reality, having technical data is not enough. Governments, institutions, and communities also need to know how to communicate that information clearly, how to raise awareness among different audiences, and how to activate meaningful public participation. The gap between technical knowledge and public action is, in many cases, a communication gap.

This guide addresses that need. It is a strategic and methodological framework that guides communication, awareness-raising, and public participation processes around air quality and health. It is not an implementation plan, but rather a roadmap that countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA), as well as other nations in the region, can adapt to their own contexts in order to design communication actions that are coherent, inclusive, and sustained over time.

​The guide incorporates a human rights, gender equity, and inclusion approach, recognizing that the effects of poor air quality are not distributed equally and that communication plays a fundamental role in reducing those inequalities.

The Guide in Action: Communicating to Transform

Communicating about air quality is not simply a matter of transmitting technical data. It means translating scientific evidence into useful social knowledge, building trust between citizens and institutions, and mobilizing support for the public policy decisions that protect collective health. This guide provides the framework for SICA technical teams and their member states to turn evidence into sustained public action.

​The document is organized around three complementary principles: communication, which provides clear and accessible information; awareness-raising, which mobilizes values, emotions, and learning; and public participation, which transforms information and awareness into collective action and shared civic responsibility.

​To bring these principles together, the guide proposes a three-phase pedagogical model — Know, Learn, Own — that allows institutions to organize their communication processes in a progressive and measurable way. The Know phase involves diagnosing and characterizing target audiences, their information channels, and their perceptions of air quality. The Learn phase consists of designing and delivering inclusive messages, selecting the most appropriate channels for each audience, and building the capacity of spokespersons and strategic partners. The Own phase focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of actions, documenting lessons learned, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of communication processes.

​The guide identifies nine target audiences, each with distinct motivations, barriers, and preferred communication channels: children; adolescents and youth; young adults and the economically active population; older adults; women in caregiving and community leadership roles; health professionals; journalists and communicators; athletes and physically active populations; and rural, indigenous, and Afro-descendant communities. For each audience, the guide proposes pedagogical archetypes and tailored strategic key messages.

​The guide is complemented by a practical Toolkit, which offers templates, tools, and concrete case studies so that technical teams can implement their own communication strategies without needing to be communication specialists. This step-by-step manual covers everything from the initial diagnosis to impact evaluation, including message development, channel selection, and the creation of basic communication materials.

​Together, the Guide and the Toolkit form a complete working system: the Guide defines the what and the why of communication; the Toolkit answers the how.