Airborne health risks digitization for better life & work experience support

Outdoor air quality issues and hazards

Ambient air pollution is a well-established cause of morbidity and mortality. However air pollution is not a lifestyle choice but a ubiquitous involuntary environmental exposure, which can affect 100% of the population from the womb to death. Large parts of the population continue to live in areas with unhealthy air quality. For some pollutants and in some regions, this situation is not improving and is even deteriorating. Changes in combustion and fuel technologies, industrial production, movement of goods and urban planning affect the constituents, and thus possibly the toxicity, of air pollution, in addition to the degree of exposure.

Traditionally, studies of the health effects of air pollution have measured some marker of air pollution, e.g. size-specific PM fractions, such as particles with an aerodynamic diameter of <10 μm (PM10) or <2.5 μm (PM2.5), respectively, or NO2. Commonly used indirect markers of traffic-related pollutants are traffic density at the nearest road or residential distance from busy roads.

While experimental studies have shown a range of effects related to single pollutants, it should be emphasised that the effects of ambient air pollution cannot be assigned to a single pollutant in the mixture. Many pollutants act together in a series of partly interrelated mechanisms, which result in the observed associations between levels of air pollution and a range of health outcomes. Oxidative stress and both local and systemic inflammation are suggested to be the main harmful mechanisms set in train following the inhalation of these pollutants.

Djinn. Environmental Intelligence

The Djinn team’s area of work and interest lies predominantly in assessing the health risks of the indoor environment at work and at home. We have created an expert system that processes and analyses data from air quality services and environmental quality sensors. The analysis is based on mathematical models created by medical team and data science experts, research by internationally well-known institutes and researchers. We have been able to build a highly accurate assessment of risks and predictions that can enable people to adjust their lifestyles and working conditions in the office and at home. The user is given the opportunity to adjust their life experience to improve their quality of life and safety. After all, just numbers on a device’s screen are just numbers. What do they mean? Are they a threat? Which ones? Does something have to be done? What exactly do you need to do? These questions can be answered using the Djinn Environmental Intelligence service.

Djinn and Airly from Poland

In 2019, Djinn met Airly and Jakub Madej during a Startup conference in Vienna. Based in Minsk, we provide solutions for indoor air quality monitoring, and when we heard about the Polish Challenge Fund, we reached out to Airly for a partnership. The Fund engages Polish companies to address complex development challenges in ways that are sustainable, suitable to the local context, and scalable and replicable within a country. A few months later, after becoming challenge grantees, Airly conducted the first training for air quality sensors in our office and installed the first Airly sensor outside our window.

Adapting the Djinn expert system and environmental intelligence to assess health threats to the outdoor environment has been a challenge for our team. We decided to develop this branch and 2 Airborne health risks assessment related analytical systems. This new model, which is different from the one we use to analyse the indoor environment. The main differences are in the different composition of the environment, in the mechanism of influence on human health, and in the pathways of spread. This required a change/strengthening of the Djinn expert team.

During the year 2020 our team was engaged in two Polish UNDP projects together with Airly. The Aim of these projects was to establish two way connections between Polish and Belarusian organizations in the field of Air pollution and exchange of technologies. Solutions like Airly help people to put air quality monitors near pollution hotspots, and Solution of Djinn helps to reveal the negative impact on human health from air pollution.

Today, we have already deployed several dozen air quality monitoring sensors in a few cities in Belarus, we receive data from each of them and we continue to work on developing the risk assessment model.

Accurate and hyper-local information about the air we breathe in a particular area is the first step towards understanding the health hazards, locating the sources of air pollution and, eventually, taking the right steps towards changing the situation, which in this case means to reduce the source of contamination and use proper clothes and masks.

Airly experienced a snowball effect: as the first municipalities and private companies installed AQ sensors, others approached that they wanted their own sensors. Local media often quoted Airly data as a source for their news about air pollution. The social impact of AIrly’s solution was big.

The first Airly sensors deployed in Belarus were installed in modern residential areas on the outskirts of Minsk. Despite the green area, these residential communities are surrounded by busy highways, and construction work continues on the site to build multi-storey houses, laying utilities, roads and pedestrian routes.

Almost 4,000 sensors now deliver data about air pollution in Poland alone, but for it was only the beginning. Four years later, Airly have installed air quality sensors in 35 countries across four continents, including the USA, Indonesia and South Africa.

Airly and Djinn (Vidalink, Belarus) pilots air quality monitoring and forecasting solutions, both for tracking and identifying the sources of air pollution, and also for gathering information for data-based decision making processes to improve the air quality. Society is becoming increasingly informed about the quality of the environment in which they live and work.

We are developing a new value by digitising disease risks based on air quality and environmental data in cities. This is now a more usable form of information, so that third-party services and applications such as insurance, medical and pharmaceutical companies can provide their customers with better services and advice in places and at periods of high risk. Sport event providers (city marathons, group training in parks and so on) can take into account respiratory risk assessment and cardiac cramp hazards. Mothers can get support when choosing walking routes with their children, when buying and renting accommodation. In general, people are empowered to be guided by their health concerns in making decisions about their lifestyle and where to live.

Is an example of a city map showing the risks of cardiovascular disease where an environmental air quality sensor has been installed. From red to green, the maximum risk to the minimum value. This data can be used by communities and businesses to improve lifestyles and services.

It is worth saying that the volume of data from manufacturers of sensors for industrial and public air quality control is quite large. We have requests from sensor manufacturers who have built their AQ services networks and from businesses.

Do not hesitate, email us to learn more! Djinn Team is always in touch!

[email protected] (Alesia Dusmikeeva - linkedin profile)

[email protected] (Anton Gakhovitch - linkedin profile)

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