The Gambia AQ Project launched with just $1000 from Clarity Movement to Clean Air One Atmosphere
Background
Air pollution is one of the key environmental health risks and contributes to nearly 7 million premature deaths globally (WHO, 2022). In Africa, ~780,000 premature annual deaths are linked to exposure to health-damaging atmospheric emissions (Bauer et al., 2019) and 520 million children do not breathe clean air (UNICEF, 2016).
With increasing urbanization, vehicular emissions, poor waste management, and the usage of solid fuels for cooking and heating, air pollution has become one of the largest public health threats in African cities. Despite the urgency of the situation, there is a severe lack of air quality data in many parts of Africa. Specifically, in The Gambia, there is limited to non-existence evidence on air pollution and the country lacks regulation on air pollution due to a lack of capabilities (i.e., no regulatory air quality monitoring). Without access to reliable air quality data, there is limited understanding of the adverse effects of air pollution on vulnerable groups, mainly children, older adults and those with existing health conditions such as asthma, respiratory infections and stroke, and the entire population in The Gambia.
Further to the above, air pollution can potentially impair an entire generation’s health, implying that The Gambia needs to critically consider undertaking routine air quality monitoring to provide site-specific scientific evidence on the degree of damage to influence mitigation policies.
The emergence and utilization of low-cost high-resolution environmental sensing tools as compared to expensive traditional air quality monitors offers us the opportunity to undertake air quality monitoring in resource-constrained and technologically lagging environments when properly operated. These devices are useful for educating citizens on air pollution and its impact on public health to influence behavioural changes targeted at air pollution mitigation and public health protection. Low-cost sensors (LCS) have been used extensively in advanced countries to provide evidence on hotspots of air pollution to better define mitigation strategies by local authorities (e.g., Oyola et al., 2022).
LCS use is now emerging in major parts of Africa. The Gambia can take advantage of these state-of-the-art devices to provide reliable data on key atmospheric pollutants specifically PM2.5 which is used for setting global air quality guidelines and national air quality standards. For example, the use of PurpleAir monitors has been demonstrated in the study Raheja et al., 2022 in collaboration with Clean Air One Atmosphere (CAOA) to provide reliable ground-based air quality data for Togo. CAOA also helped build a collaboration between Université de Lomé and Columbia University aimed at local capacity building in Togo led by Prof Dan Westervelt and Prof Kokou Sabi respectively.
In light of the above, CAOA with just a $1000 flight ticket from Clarity Movement, launched The Gambia Air Quality Project in collaboration with the Ministry of Health through the Directorate of Public Health Services. This was led by Dr Buba Manjang, Permanent Secretaries and most importantly the Minister of Health of The Gambia Hon. Dr Lamin Samateh. The project has been tagged by The Gambia team as #TheLegacyProject since this is a pioneering air quality project to provide policymakers with scientific evidence on air pollution.
Snapshot AQ Workshop — The Gambia
CAOA organised a 2-day air quality workshop in The Gambia titled “Snapshot AQ Workshop — The Gambia” with local and international collaborators. The purpose of the workshop was to introduce The Gambia team to the need for air quality monitoring, air pollution health effects, the utility of new and cheaper technologies to provide reliable data for air pollution research and mitigation and most importantly expand on community’s awareness of air pollution with open-source meaningful air quality data to reduce exposure. Also, the workshop was to capacitate attendants with the needed knowledge and evoke their interest in atmospheric science and related courses to man The Gambia’s air quality monitoring networks to provide meaningful data insights for air pollution management and control.
· Dr Pallavi Pant — Health Effects Institute, Boston, USA
Dr Pallavi, Head of Global Health at the Health Effects Institute opened the workshop by introducing participants to air pollution and its impacts on health. Key highlights of her presentation are but not limited to the following:
•Patterns of exposure to air pollution — global and West Africa.
•Health effects of air pollution.
•Overview of research on air pollution in The Gambia (highlights from key studies).
•Contribution of air pollution to disease burden in The Gambia.
· Prof Dan Westervelt — Columbia University, New York, USA
Prof Dan, a Lamont Assistant Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades presented on the usefulness of low-cost environmental sensing tools for air quality monitoring. Key highlights of his presentation are but not limited to the following:
•Use of low-cost sensors (LCS) for air quality monitoring.
•Best practices.
•Air quality works in West Africa.
· Mr Sean Wihera — Clarity Movement, Berkeley, USA
Mr Sean Wihera, Vice President, Business Development and Partnerships at Clarity Movement presented on his organisation and the use of Clarity Node-S for meaningful air quality monitoring and data communication in The Gambia. Key highlights of his presentation are but not limited to the following:
•Clarity Movement (Brief overview).
•Clarity sensing as-a-service.
•Clarity Node-S Air Monitors.
•Expansion Modules.
•Clarity Dashboard and Cloud Service.
•Clarity Project Teams.
•QA/QC.
•Air quality management programs versus air quality monitoring projects.
· Prof Cesunica Ivey — University of California, Berkeley, USA
Prof Suni of the University of California, Berkeley wrapped up the workshop with a presentation that focused on the utility of LCS specifically Clarity Nodes and other wearable LCS. Key highlights of his presentation are but not limited to the following:
•Work history with Clarity Nodes (Innovation Corridor, Colton Monitoring)
•Other LCS work with wearable APT Monitors
•Community engaged-research
Feedback on The Gambia AQ Project
Aside key participants from the following representation — Environmental Health Unit; Vector Control Unit; Occupational and Safety Unit; Director of Public Health (DPHS) ask Dr Buba for details); Research Directorate; WaSH; Deputy Permanent Secretary Technical (DPS-T); Western Health Region 2; Planning Unit; Air Quality Unit; Weather Forecast Unit; Climate Change Unit; University of the Gambia Department of Public Health; Youth Group Association; National Assembly Member; Health Education and Promotion Directorate; Department of Community Development; Ministry of Health; Wolrd Health Organisation; Food and Agriculture Organisation; United Nations Children’s Fund and Support Drivers all of The Gambia and the local media was also engaged and carried out the highlights of the workshop to the wider public in The Gambia. In a brief meeting with the Hon Minister of Health, The Gambia — Dr Lamin Samateh opined that “The Gambia AQ Project is a great initiative; many people complain about air pollution in The Gambia but no one has been able to provide us with solutions. We need scientific evidence to be able to develop the needed policies to protect public health from the adverse effects of air pollution.”
The way forward
CAOA led The Gambia team to deploy two LCS in The Gambia. This was carried out after demonstration and hands-on operations, local SIM-card installation for the Airnote Monitor, and affixing a solar panel on the Clarity Node-S. All practical works were carried out in collaboration with The Gambia Team led by Dr Buba and his subordinates Mr Ibrahim Touray, and Mr Lamin Bojang including the drivers.
Deployment of the sensors was followed up by an introduction to R-programming language with a focus on how to download the reported data from LCS, import the reported data into R-studio including setting the working directory and how to undertake basic filtering by e.g., removing zeros and working with “DateTime” as well as how to use the Clarity Movement Dashboard. To ensure transparency, CAOA added Dr Buba Manjang, the lead of The Gambia AQ Project Team to the Clarity Movement Dashboard.
To wrap up with the launch, CAOA used an open-source data mining tool developed from the “openair” manual (a widely accepted package for air pollution data analysis) to provide quick data visualisation. The Gambia Team was led by CAOA on how to use these types of tools and the need for capacity building in The Gambia which we hope will be led by Prof Dan Westervelt of Columbia University as done in Togo.
