In current conversations about air pollution, we have grown accustomed to perceiving Air as simply the absence of pollutants. However, Air is vastly more than this. We asked Dr Jake Robinson, who is a microbial ecologist to provide an understanding of Air that is more robust, spiritual, and scientific. 

Given how important the environmental microbiome is both to human health and planetary regulation, it is important that we begin to include it in the context of cities and urbanisation.

This project brought together people with knowledges across a variety of policy, organising in healthcare and the criminal justice system, as well as environmental and climate justice.

On 11th October 2023, 14 people, ranging from the fields of medicine, policy, law, abolition, science, data science, economics, and art gathered to declare our right to access AIR.

“Planetary dysregulation is the impaired ability of planetary systems to maintain the processes required for self-regulation, particularly due to unsustainable exploitation of ecosystems and chronic exposure to industrial contamination”.

Biological inequity, also known as biological inequality, refers to “systematic, unfair, and avoidable stress-related biological differences which increase risk of disease, observed between social groups of a population”.

The ecological framing of health provides an opportunity for a health justice argument. As our health is so intrinsically tied to the places we live, then it should be a human right to live without contamination and pollution.

The purpose of this data led study is to bring attention to everyday people those who have the right to pollute in their neighbourhoods, so that people can make more informed decisions when it comes to voting and priorities for our shared health and climate change action points.

There is now a very clear understanding that environmental hazards, such as air pollution have a direct effect on our health. However, what is often missing from the conversation is how environmental hazards, due to being an experience of stress and trauma can lead to mental distress. In addition to the disproportionate exposure to health hazards, being aware of the injustice underlying this disproportionate exposure may be a psychosocial stressor that affects health negatively.

At the crux of this theory is that when the body is faced with stressors it adapts through a process called allostasis, which means “achieving stability/homeostasis through change”.

Human activity, especially at scale, has not just produced particulates that harm us. In the case of three major greenhouse gases (GHGs), large-scale human activity has also disturbed the balance of naturally occurring gases to the point that global warming takes place because the ecosystem is not able to adapt.

Due to the large level of grocery sales, food, drink and tobacco are the largest emitters of any retail sub-sector, being responsible for 62 per cent of all emissions.

Depression is often framed as a mental health problem, however, the more we understand the more we uncover its physical symptomology. Additionally, it is important to understand how environmental factors, such as air pollution are contributing to its prevalence.

We are going to use diabetes as a case study to produce three learnings. (1) Genetics are not the full story when it comes to non communicable diseases such as diabetes. (2) Understand that disease prevention and even cure is not just in the confines of medical institutions. (3) The need for geospatial studies to understand the interlink between diabetes and place.

This letter is a list of our thoughts and concerns based on our experience as neuroscientists working on public health issues. The intention is to support the “Stop The Stink” campaign, as you face different aspects of environmental injustice.

Air pollution presents a particularly insidious hazard given that the disease affects respiratory and cardio-vascular systems (source). These two systems are sensitive to air pollution as air pollution directly damages the mechanics and as a consequence the function of lungs, heart, and the circulatory system.

Air pollution, indoors and outdoors, is one of the main environmental hazards identified that affects not only our lungs but, in fact, our whole body. With every breath we take, we breathe in oxygen, an element critical to our life. But we also breathe in harmful pollutants that enter our lungs and bloodstream to then travel through the whole of our system where they reach, virtually, all our cells.

It is imperative for health organisations to provide guidelines based on the specific population under investigation: what is the susceptibility to health hazards of the individuals in the community?

Centric Lab worked alongside Clean Air for Southall & Hayes to design a susceptibility study. This was in aid of demonstrating to authorities that current regulations on air pollution limits and management techniques fail those already exposed to high levels of environmental and psychosocial stressors, such as the multi-ethnic working class community of Southall, west London.