In 1970, Los Angeles was known as the smog capital of the world.
That year, millions marched for a cleaner environment on Earth Day.
हमारे बारे में
The Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy. Through the AQLI’s hyper-local data, users anywhere on Earth can zoom into their district and see how much longer they would live if policies were to reduce pollution to meet the World Health Organization’s guideline, a national standard, or a user-defined target. This information can help inform local communities and policymakers about the benefits of air pollution policies in perhaps the most important measure that exists: longer lives.
Information to Impact
Information to Impact
Air pollution can be drastically reduced through effective policies
Effective policies come out of a call for change
To foster a call for change, citizens need local information to understand the problem and how it impacts them
That’s where AQLI comes in
Months later, lawmakers passed the Clean Air Act that set clean air policy ambitions for the entire United States.
Since then, particulate pollution in Los Angeles and across the United States has declined by about
60%
and people are now living longer and healthier lives.
Again, around 2010, public pressure began to mount in Beijing because of worsening air pollution.
After the city experienced an “airpocalypse” in 2013, the central government started a war on pollution.
Since 2013, particulate pollution has declined by
53% in Beijing
40% across China
Clean air requires effective policies.
Effective policies require a call for change.
Clean air requires effective policies.
Effective policies require a call for change.
What leads citizens to call for change?
What leads citizens to call for change?
Local information about air pollution and its impact
The traditional approach to communicating the risk of air pollution has been through the “traffic light” color-coding of Air Quality Index systems used by many countries and organizations. However, these colors do little to convey long-term health risk.
The AQLI uses a novel approach to communicate the risk of pollution in the most immediate and important term: life expectancy
This information not only provides people with information about how the air they breathe impacts their life, but also underscores the importance of effective policies by illustrating the benefits of both past and proposed air quality regulations
Research Design
Research Design
The AQLI is rooted in peer-reviewed research by an international team of scholars, including Michael Greenstone from the University of Chicago, which for the first time quantified the causal relationship between long-term human exposure to air pollution and life expectancy.
This research is based on pollution data at the very high concentrations that prevail in many parts of the world, unlike previous work that has relied on evidence from the low levels experienced in places like the United States.
The Index combines this research with hyper-localized, global particulate matter satellite data. This unique approach makes the AQLI the first pollution index to show what the threat of air pollution means to a person’s life anywhere in the world.
EPIC Clean Air Program
EPIC Clean Air Program
The AQLI is a project of the EPIC Clean Air Program. Learn more about other projects that are part of the EPIC Clean Air Program:
Our funders
Our funders
एयर क्वालिटी लाइफ़ इंडेक्स का कार्य निम्नलिखित व्यक्तियों और संस्थाओं के उदार समर्थन के माध्यम से संभव हुआ है: