Vital Strategies 109d ago

In Jakarta, air pollution is one of the leading environmental health risks, contributing to preventable illness and significant economic losses. While the city has invested in ambient air quality monitoring, measurements from fixed sites cannot fully capture what any individual child breathes throughout their day. To bridge this gap between population-level data and personal exposure, Vital Strategies — together with Universitas Padjadjaran, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Health Agency, and the DKI Jakarta Provincial Education Agency, with support from Breathe Cities — conducted a personal exposure monitoring study measuring the air quality experienced by children in their daily environments. Using a citizen science approach, fifty-one children across two public primary schools in South and Central Jakarta carried portable air pollution sensors which measured PM2.5 (fine particulate matter – the best single indicator of health damaging air pollution) for 24 hours while keeping a time-activity diary, allowing researchers to link exposure levels directly to location, activity, and pollution source. Read more about the study's key findings: https://www.vitalstrategies.org/resources/personal-exposure-study-in-jakarta/