Air Quality; The opportune sphere worth pursuit

Are you aware about the air you breathe? Have you ever known that the air you breathe might have harmful effects on your health? Do you know that people are dying prematurely due to air pollution? Last but not least, do you even know that it is your responsibility to improve the air you breathe? Based on these rhetorical questions, a PHFP fellow (Mackline Ninsiima) decided to prioritize her attention to air quality during her deployment at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA); an opportunity that has been a great game-changer in her career world.

Air quality is one of the outstanding health concerns today; a silent killer accounting for an estimated 6.7 million premature deaths worldwide.

The PHFP fellow at the KCCA host site was privileged to present the air quality operations and spatio-temporal trends of air quality in Kampala City during the East African stakeholder conference organized by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and at the Air Quality and Health Symposium organized by GEO Health Hub at the University of Nairobi and Columbia Global Centre, Nairobi.

The majority of the round table discussions were centered on projects evaluating the effects of air quality on health across the East African Cities.