Why communicating air quality information in the simplest form gets more people to understand and get involved in the fight against air pollution

Abstract

Abstract. Mass communication can enable changes in public behaviors, public awareness, and an effective public-policy dialogue, and simplification of the knowledge, data, and concepts of the problem is the key to mass communication. Globally, according to the State of the Global Air 2020 report, an estimated 6.7 million premature deaths are associated with outdoor and household air pollution. There is a consensus on the level of the problem, there are guidelines for better air quality from the World Health Organization, and there are state-of-the-art analytical systems to support air quality managers and practitioners. Often, especially in the low- and middle-income countries, the path forward to act against the air pollution problem halts because of the “fear of the unknown” driven by lack of data, misconceptions, and complexities of the analytical systems. There is an urgent need to train the next generation of managers, practitioners, and scientists without this fear. This manuscript is an attempt to catalogue examples that simplified the theory of air pollution to benefit public awareness activities for a broader audience and to present resources to bridge their knowledge gaps with the air pollution modeling community.