Strategies for mitigating the adverse health impacts of air pollution on community: a document analysis

Air pollution is the biggest environmental factor impacting the health of people worldwide contributing significantly to mortality. This study has been conducted to investigate the strategies of air pollution policies suggested by multilateral organisations to mitigate the adverse impact of air pollution on populations' health.

This study was a qualitative document analysis of health policies and strategies related to air pollution. For this purpose, READ's 4-step approach (Ready material, Extract findings, Analyse data and Distil findings) was used. This approach entails systematic method for collating documents and extracting information from them. This was done with respect to air pollution and health policy studies at global, national and local levels. After extraction of related documents, the content analysis of the obtained documents was done.

Cumulatively 12 documents were considered for analysis. In toto, 810 codes, 27 subcategories and 9 categories were extracted by content analysis. The categories included strategies for emission reduction, strategies for exposure reduction, strategies for education & communication, strategies for high-risk groups, strategies for research, strategies for capacity building, strategies for policymaking, implementation and enforcement, strategies for collaboration and coordination, and strategies for evaluation.

Mitigating health impacts of air pollution needs to go beyond emission reduction at the sources of pollution. They could encompass comprehensive and holistic measures addressed to population affected by pollution. Health sector strengthening, policy advocacy by health sector, health sector awareness, policy enforcement and implementation through cross sectoral and geographical collaboration and coordination also needs to be the focus for improving the health of the population.