Particulate Matters - February 2023 | Is your air quality impacting your decision making? ??
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Welcome to the February edition of Particulate Matters.
Air pollution continues to infiltrate the news with London seeing it’s worst air pollution in six years, the launch of new clean air zones in the UK and the demand for air quality monitors at home growing.
In this edition of Particulate Matters, we’re covering:
- London’s worst air pollution in six years – After the cold spell at the turn of the month, we saw the worst air quality in the capital for six years
- How does poor air quality impact our decision making? – MIT found that a 10μg/m3 increase in the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) increases the probability of chess players making an incorrect move by a whopping 26.3%
- The latest air pollution research – Find out how air quality is impacting mental health, and why the communication of air pollution levels could impact personal exposure and public health
Noteworthy News ??
??Worst London air pollution in six years
Last month, air pollution in London reached the top value of 10 on the UK Government’s index. Greatest concentrations were measured in the southwestern suburbs, and was London’s worst air pollution score since January 2017.
These short episodes of air pollution have a serious impact. A five-year study of 1.2 million Londoners published in 2021 found a rise in GP respiratory consultations and inhaler prescriptions after short increases in air pollution, which was even more pronounced in children and persisted for at least a week.
Home wood burning played a large role in the pollution peaks last weekend, according to Imperial College London’s data on the chemical composition of the particle pollution in London; especially during the evenings. Analysis of the soot particles that Londoners were breathing showed that between 60% and 70% came from wood or solid fuel heating. Averaged over the whole year, home fires in the UK produce more particle pollution than the exhaust of all traffic on our roads!
??London and Milan mayors come together to improve air quality in cities
The mayors of London and Milan recently came together to discuss opportunities to tackle air pollution, the climate crisis and congestion.
Chair of C40 Cities, London’s Sadiq Khan, and Vice Chair for Europe, Milan’s Giuseppe Sala, hosted a roundtable of experts focused on reducing city pollution through solutions such as low emission zones.
C40 Cities is a network of 100 mayors across the world working on delivering effective climate action, with the two mayors set to be joined by medical experts; including Professor Frank Kelly, and campaigners Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah and Mum’s for Lungs founder Jemima Hartshorn, among others.
??IKEA launches new air quality sensor
IKEA’s new VINDSTYRKA indoor air quality monitor has just launched. t’s a big upgrade on their existing PM sensor, and – signals the increasing demand for IAQ data in the home.
VINDSTYRKA features a display that shows PM2.5 levels, humidity, temperature, and TVOCs, and can also connect to other devices in the IKEA range such as their smart hub, home app and air purifiers to trigger increases or decreases in fan speeds of purification devices based on PM2.5 levels.
In AirRated’s recent IAQ survey at the end of 2022, we found that 78% of us have either purchased or are considering purchasing air quality technology. These results highlight the growing number of individuals taking their own action to combat the health risks of poor air quality!
?? Chess players face a tough foe: air pollution
‘Here’s something else chess players need to keep in check: air pollution.’
That’s the bottom line of a newly published study co-authored by an MIT researcher, showing that chess players perform objectively worse and make more suboptimal moves –, as measured by a computerised analysis of their games – when there is more fine particulate matter in the air.
More specifically, given a modest increase in fine particulate matter, the probability that chess players will make an error increases by 2.1 percentage points, and the magnitude of those errors increases by 10.8 percent. In this setting, at least, cleaner air leads to clearer heads and sharper thinking.
If chess players are struggling, we’re sure that there’s similar impacts on our performance within our offices and working environments too!
Latest Research ??
?? How air quality is undermining our mental health
New research from China has linked rising mental health difficulties of the urban population to high levels of air pollution.
Findings, from the use of a daily mental health metric relating to mental-health-related queries, suggested that air pollution causally undermines people’s mental health – and that this impact becomes stronger as the duration of exposure to air pollution increases.
They estimate that with a one-standard-deviation increase of fine particulate matter (26.3 μg m?3), the number of people who suffer from mental health problems in China increases by approximately 1.15 million.
???? Could the way air pollution data is communicated be impacting the health of people across Europe?
The WHO recently released a report on the risk communication of ambient air pollution across the 37 Member States of the WHO European Region, suggesting that there is tremendous variation in how air quality risks are reported to the general public.
Noting that validation studies using local health data to evaluate the efficacy of air quality indexes are currently lacking, there’s a risk that the desired reductions in personal exposure and improvements in public health may not be achieved.
AirRated on the news!
Last week, AirRated's Rohit Chakraborty was interviewed on BBC Look North to discuss Sheffield's new clean air zone (CAZ), launching next Monday on February 27th.
Rohit was part of the research team at the University of Sheffield who have been monitoring air quality data across Sheffield and discussed the impact that the CAZ would have on air pollution in the city.
Research has shown that clean air zones can significantly impact air quality, with reductions in particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide levels of up to 30%.
The Royal College of Physicians estimates that air pollution is responsible for up to 36,000 premature deaths per year in the UK, costing the economy ￡20 billion annually – making initiatives like this all the more important.
Rohit wrote more about the plans on LinkedIn last week.
Latest AirScores
This month we announced two of the best performing AirScore and AirScore D&O buildings we’ve certified ever! One Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, who achieved the highest AirScore of any actively certified building in the world, and One Station Hill, one of the highest scoring AirScore D&O certifications based on their design and operation specification.
??Manchester
AirScore Platinum (Recertification)
One Station Hill (coming early 2024)
?? Reading
AirScore D&O Platinum
Read our Journal
We hope you've enjoyed this month’s edition of Particulate Matters.
If you want to get involved in future air quality content, get in touch with the team at [email protected] – we'd love to hear from you.
Thanks,
The AirRated team