Cutting through the smoke
Air quality research at Imperial College London
By Linda Geddes
Air pollution is recognised as one of the greatest environmental threats we face in our modern world. It is also an important public health issue, associated with some 7 million deaths globally each year. Yet although we know that the gases and particulate matter produced by burning fuel are harmful, there is still a great deal we don’t know about how individual pollutants contribute and combine to affect human health over the short and longer term.
Linda Geddes is a Bristol-based freelance journalist writing about biology, medicine and technology. She spent nine years at New Scientist working as a news editor, features editor and reporter, and remains a consultant to the magazine.
This feature was commissioned to coincide with the Imperial IdeasLab at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, in September 2018.
Article text (excluding photos or graphics) © Imperial College London.
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