Providing actionable evidence highlighting synergies and conflicts between global sustainable development goals of climate action, reducing air pollution and promoting better health, while interacting with key stakeholders is an important step forward to achieving Agenda 2030.
Indian policy has made slow progress often due to lack of locally generated evidence to support action primarily due to the absence of high-quality assessment of exposure to air pollution and temperature, and their joint adverse impacts on human health. In an international multidisciplinary consortium of leading experts, we will leverage cutting-edge methodologies, already developed for Delhi, using multiple sources for 1×1 km predictions of fine particulate matter pollution and temperature across India.
Linking this data to health datasets we will study associations of long-term air pollution and temperature with mortality and cardiometabolic and respiratory disease in rural and urban India. To foster public awareness, collaboration, and policy change, we will provide an interactive web-tool, open access to environmental data, and an ambitious stakeholder communications and engagement strategy. We are also finding synergies in this effort with our other ongoing projects. For instance, through the NIH-funded India GEOHealth India Hub– we have demonstrated the relationship between air pollution and cardio-metabolic risk factors in two major cities in India. India GEOHealth Hub has both research and capacity building activities under the umbrella of environmental health research.
Our success in India will significantly contribute to sustainable development benefiting both the large Indian population and the global community.