Helping construction sites to measure polluting emissions
Arup have created an innovative tool, which can help construction companies to plan, monitor, and manage their polluting emissions.
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At Impact on Urban Health, our mission is to improve health outcomes and achieve health equity for the residents of Lambeth and Southwark and beyond.
To achieve this, we recognise the importance of taking a robust, data-driven approach when identifying areas to focus upon. We also work closely with partners to improve our understanding of the links between poverty, racism, and people’s poor health.
Since health is shaped by a wide range of interconnected factors rather than a single determinant, we recognise that understanding these complexities is key to prioritising interventions effectively.
Our Health effects of air pollution programme takes several approaches to improving air quality. One of those involves reducing harmful pollutants from construction sites.
Air pollution and construction sites
Construction sites are a major source of air pollution in urban areas (indeed construction sites are the leading source of PM10 pollution). That’s why we’ve been working with partners in the construction sector to find ways to reduce air pollution from sites.
For example, our partner Arup has developed a tool that supports construction companies to plan, monitor and manage their emissions from machinery.
Prioritising the most at-risk areas with the Air Pollution Risk Index tool
To support this effort, we created a tool, called the Air Pollution Risk Index. The index can estimate the risk of experiencing health effects of air pollution in different neighbourhoods. Therefore, it can help councils, Arup, and us at Impact on Urban Heath find areas where a reduction in air pollution from construction sites could have the biggest benefit on people’s health.
Given that air pollution does not affect all residents equally, we focused on identifying factors that could cause or contribute to poorer health outcomes. For example:
- Areas where people might have a higher risk of experiencing the health effects of air pollution, based on socio demographics, and how they are affected by air pollution. For example, areas with a higher proportion of children.
- Areas where there are higher needs based on recorded health data. For example, areas with higher rates of hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Areas with higher exposure to air pollution, indoors or outdoors. For example, areas with higher concentrations of fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) or a higher proportion of households living in overcrowded homes.
We identified areas to prioritise by identifying intersections between these factors, rather than one dimension outweighing the other.
You can browse the index below:
What can the Air Pollution Risk Index be used for?
1. The index enables more informed decision-making
The tool shows which areas might have the highest need in terms of the health effects of air pollution. The tool also demonstrates how many schools, care homes or hospitals are in the area, which provides another level of detail that can be considered when making decisions.
2. The index enables a greater degree of transparency
Other factors might feed into the final selection of sites, such as considerations regarding which stakeholders are more likely to be open to change their approaches, or how long planned construction work will take. The tool can help improve clarity and transparency regarding the factors that are shaping decisions. By providing clarity regarding neighbourhood risk, other considerations are contextualised and can be made transparent. A stakeholder may not choose to work in the most at-risk areas, but that would be a conscious decision.
3. The index can support community engagement and co-development of localised strategies
The tool provides information on the ethnicity, sex, and disability status of people living in each neighbourhood, which can inform targeted outreach and engagement strategies within selected areas.
How does the index work?
The Air Pollution Risk Index primarily does two things:
1. It estimates the level of need of each small geographic area in Lambeth and Southwark.
The index includes several indicators, organised into four categories:
- Socio-demographics
- Health outcomes
- Air pollution (indoor)
- Air pollution (outdoor)
Users can include or exclude specific factors based on their priorities.
The Index weights categories equally, regardless of the number of indicators in each category. It then produces an overall score and groups all areas into deciles – ranging from highest need (decile 1) to lowest need (decile 10) across all included indicators and categories.
2. The Index provides an overview of the area within a 250-metre radius of each construction site, offering insights into:
- the total number of people, and the total number of schools, hospitals, and care homes in the surrounding community,
- the names and level-of-need deciles of neighbourhoods within this radius.
To provide deeper insights, an added tooltip feature displays detailed information on the diversity of each area, including data on ethnicity, disability, and sex.
The Air Pollution Risk Index has some limitations:
- Professional judgement and careful consideration are needed. Professional judgement and careful consideration are needed to decide whether highest need areas should be prioritised (regardless of potentially low need in neighbouring areas that would also benefit from intervening action) or whether the average need of affected areas should be considered. It is also possible to look at the tooltips and consider prioritising areas with higher proportions of people from minoritised ethnic groups, or with reported disabilities to ensure affected communities’ needs are advocated for.
- The Air Pollution Risk Index provides limited information on the construction sites themselves. For example, it does not provide any information on the readiness of construction companies to adopt new ways of working. Moreover, it does not yet include information on the potential impact of construction sites, based on the expected levels of emissions.
- The Air Pollution Risk Index provides an estimation of relative need. The tool includes a selection of indicators that are closely related to the health effects of air pollution – however, other indicators might be relevant, and as such might be included in further iterations of this tool. Moreover, currently all categories are weighted evenly, and all indicators within each category are weighted evenly. This might not be a fully accurate reflection of the relative importance of the various indicators.
Although the Air Pollution Risk Index was created to support the construction strand of the Health effects of air pollution programme, we believe its approach to bringing together data can be replicated for other areas of work within the programme and more widely.
We are looking forward to learning how its use will help our programme and partner maximise their impact and how we can improve the approach to benefit other strands of work.
Find out more
Health effects of air pollution
Health effects of air pollution
Reducing air pollution from construction sites
We’ve been working with the Centre for Low Emission Construction (CLEC) to find ways to reduce air pollution from construction sites.
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Health effects of air pollution
Partnering to reduce air pollution from the construction sector
With Centre for Low Emission Construction (CLEC)
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