Fighting Global Air Inequality with Open Data and Community Engagement

Abstract:

Air pollution is one of the biggest public health and environmental justice issues of our time, causing 1 out of 8 deaths, or 4.5 million deaths on the planet. This burden of disease is expected to double by 2050. Despite air pollution posing a global threat, change is entirely achievable with sustained political will and solutions that stem from formal government policies, corporate responsibility, and citizen science. A major barrier to catalyzing this change, however, is the lack of access to universally-formatted air quality data on a local, national, regional, and global scale.

To address this challenge, OpenAQ has created the world's first open, real-time and historical air quality platform that aggregates and harmonizes government measured and research-grade data -- entirely open-source. This panel will focus on sharing how OpenAQ’s data infrastructure has shaped the way that individuals and organizations tackle air inequality - spurring actions including pushing air pollution policy within local government, developing web applications to raise awareness of health risks associated with air pollution, to seminal studies in atmospheric science and public health research.