2. Follow community knowledge about where air quality problems need solving.

Residents are often the first to know where the problems lie. During our Lightning Talks session, presenters shared projects where lived experience leads the way. 

Participants learned how the Fairmount Indigo CDC Collaborative (FICC) and Air Partners are using backpack-based sensors to collect transit-related pollution data during their daily commutes along the Fairmount Corridor. 

In East Boston, the Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH) is teaching neighbors how to build and maintain DIY indoor air purifiers to protect indoor air quality in their homes.  

“Communities are full of experts who know where it always smells,” said Dr. Patrick Herron of the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), which is leading an EPA-funded multisite air quality study in East Boston, Charlestown, Malden, and Everett guided by a community advisory board. “There are so many pollutants that are hyperlocal. We never would have arrived in the right place without the community,’’ he added. 

Participants also highlighted the educational potential of local air quality data. By exploring local data relative to their own lives, students of all ages can gain the scientific awareness and civic tools to improve public health outcomes in their own backyards.