Event helps health workers understand how technology can tackle air pollution

An online workshop will give healthcare professionals first hand insight into how technology can help patients who are vulnerable to air pollution.

Despite the reduction in air pollution over the last decade, especially during the Covid lockdown period, air pollution still poses a serious threat to the health of millions of people around the world.

According to NHS England, thousands of people die in the UK and thousands continue to suffer serious health problems due to being exposed to air pollution over long periods of time.

An event on 20 July will help healthcare workers understand the link between air quality and health and how technology can assist in dealing with the problem.

Dr Mohammad Nazir OBE, Managing Director of Nazir Associates Ltd and Head of Innovation Exploitation for PASS, said: ‘Health professionals rarely make connection between poor health and air pollution when diagnosing illnesses in patients. Some GPs and health consultants confess that they have come across air pollution impacts on health during their studies but in practice air pollution is rarely considered as an underlying cause for the illnesses.

‘Indoor pollution can be as deadly as outdoor pollution. Latest innovations can provide valuable air quality, weather, traffic and GIS data to support the health professionals and the patient. To apply these technologies there needs to be a joined up approach between the clinicians, patients, health community and the innovators.

‘Recent research about air quality from WHO, Imperial College and NHS England clearly demonstrates the connection between long term exposure to high levels of air pollution and its serious impact on health. This is particularly due to exposure to particulate matter PM2.5, nitrogen oxide and other gases. These pollutants in the air can not only cause respiratory diseases – especially in those with already weak immune systems – but also contribute to cardiovascular disease, asthma, strokes, cancer and so much more which could, in some cases, lead to death.’

Dr Mohammad Nazir, who served as a non-executive director of the Strategic Health Authority where he was involved in the digital transformation strategy implementation, added: ‘There is now a direct link identified between air quality and health of human beings. Health professionals, GPs and health consultants need to be supported by latest technologies to include air pollution within their diagnosis.’

Local authorities across England have been granted more than £11 million in government funding to deliver projects to improve air quality.

The money, from the Government’s Air Quality Grant, helps councils develop and implement measures to benefit schools, businesses and communities and reduce the impact of dirty air on people’s health.

 More than double the funding awarded in 2021 has been made available for this year’s grant, meaning a raft of innovative projects to deliver air quality improvements are being supported.

This includes over £1m of funding for projects that will deliver measures to improve public awareness in local communities about the risks of air pollution, following a recommendation in the Coroner’s Prevention of Future Deaths report after the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah in 2013.

John Vinson, Commercial Director of Vortex, a manufacturer of IoT air quality sensors technology, said: ‘I believe that now, more than ever before, air quality sensor technology has developed so much that data is now available at a much more local level.  By using this data health clinicians could look for patterns of ill health amongst people living in certain localities and the type of particulate matter or gases that could be affecting their health.’

Professor Hafiz Alaka, Head of Department for BigData and Ai at Hertfordshire University added: ‘BigData and Ai advanced technology solutions are being developed for the health sector to assist them to monitor air quality data of the deadly particulate matter and the potential exposure to this by individuals who are suffering from respiratory or other related diseases that could originate or made worse by air pollution. University of Hertfordshire is one of the partners in a project partly funded by Innovate UK that is currently working on such technologies, but they need help from the health professionals to fine tune the technology to help with diagnostics with air pollution relate diseases.’

Mr Vinson, Professor Alaka and Dr Nazir will speak at the online workshop on 20 July 2022, jointly organised by West Midlands Health Technology Cluster and PASS.

Attendees from the health community will get firsthand insight of mobile APP technology and Citywide Analytic Dashboard (CAD) which could aid health professionals and those who are suffering from air pollution.

To book a seat at the PASS workshop click here: https://air-quality-matters-to-health.eventbrite.co.uk