A new effort is underway in Dallas to measure the quality of the air we breathe.
The City of Dallas announced Monday that air quality meters were being installed this week in nine neighborhoods that were selected as part of the city's Breathe Easy Project.
The goal of the 1-year study is to improve public health among high-risk populations with a focus on children with asthma, project leaders say.
“The collected data will be shared with local health and community stakeholders to advance additional, parallel research efforts and inform future air quality-related health interventions," said Kathy Jack, Dallas Healthy Cities Program Director at The Nature Conservancy in Texas.
“This project will give us better insight on neighborhood-level air quality, while also advancing the state of the science related to this equipment," said Susan Alvarez, assistant director of Environmental Compliance & Sustainability. Alvarez says the meters were calibrated to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality monitors that are used to determine overall air quality in Dallas.
The nine neighborhood locations were selected through a review of current Safe-Route-to-School program areas, along with available public health data relative to the prevalence of childhood asthma and racial and economic demographics, the city said in a news release.
