PressHealth and mortality

Environmental injustice in outdoor air pollution

Interface Demography
Environmental injustice in outdoor air pollution

Policy brief

Download the full pdf of the policy brief.

Environmental injustice in outdoor air pollution:
Inequality in exposure and in the impact on health and mortality of exposure to outdoor air pollution in the Brussels Capital Region

MAIN CONCLUSIONS

  1. Outdoor air pollution is an urgent problem that poses a threat to public health and that involves high costs.
  2. Knowledge around the health risks of outdoor air pollution and its problematisation is limited and unevenly distributed in the population.
  3. Socially vulnerable groups are least aware of the health risks of outdoor air pollution, while there are strong indications that they are the largest victims.
  4. Policy on outdoor air pollution is mainly driven by the need to meet (international) standards; a policy that regards outdoor air pollution as a (social) health determinant would be much more ambitious.
  5. Pollution measures should focus even more on tackling pollution at source, rather than trying to protect the population once pollution is a reality.
  6. The problem of outdoor air pollution calls for more co-operation between and within different policy levels.
  7. Policy should focus on better informing and raising awareness about the health risks of outdoor air pollution.

For more information on the project, visit www.greenandquiet.be