Inequalities in cumulative exposure to air pollution in the home and workplace, and their health...

Gemma Catney, Queen's University Belfast and Fran Darlington-Pollock, University of Liverpool

This project adopts an environmental injustice perspective to explore exposure to air pollution and its health impacts. The research will consider why people (and in which areas) are most at risk from exposure to harmful air pollutants. In particular, the project aims to understand better the relationship between deprivation and ethnicity, and exposure. The project is innovative in taking a holistic approach to exposure, focusing not just on where people live, but on their commuting experience (workplace location, distance travelled, transport mode), and how these elements may add cumulatively to exposure (and ultimately health) risks. The role of selective sorting (geographic mobility) into and out of high risk areas across the lifecourse offers additional novelty. The result will be a comprehensive UK-wide understanding of the multiplication of risk of air pollution exposure across the lifecourse, and the inequalities in this accumulation.