The Power of Mobility: How Mobile Air Quality Monitors Reveal Neighborhood-Level Disparities
Our Work – Improving Air Quality in Vulnerable Communities
In 2021, HEAL Utah received our first Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) project grant, partnering with Salt Lake County, the University of Utah, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, and others. Using this grant, HEAL Utah purchased and installed air quality monitors on top of electric buses traveling around the Westside of the Salt Lake Valley. These monitors are now actively collecting data as the buses move through various neighborhoods, providing a more nuanced understanding of local air quality.
Why Mobile Air Quality Monitors Matter
Traditional stationary air quality monitors are effective at measuring pollution levels, but they have limitations. Because they are fixed in one location, they may not capture the variations in air quality that occur across different neighborhoods and microclimates within a city or county. This can lead to an overgeneralization, suggesting that air quality is uniform across a larger area when, in fact, it can differ significantly from one place to another.
Capturing Microclimate Differences
Mobile air quality monitors, like those now deployed on electric buses, offer a significant advantage. By moving through various routes, these monitors can detect changes in air quality at a much finer scale. This is crucial for understanding the disparities that exist within often overlooked and under-resourced communities, such as the Westside of Salt Lake City.
Screenshot highlighting the difference in air quality at the neighborhood level, taken on Saturday, August 3rd, 2024 at 4:40 PM.
Addressing Environmental Justice
The EPA project aims to evaluate the East to West disparity in air pollution within Salt Lake Valley. Historically, the Westside of Salt Lake City has faced greater environmental impacts due to a combination of industrial zoning, traffic congestion, and less green space. These conditions are partly a legacy of redlining and other harmful policies that concentrated low-income and minority communities in areas with higher pollution levels.
The primary evaluation routes for this project include UTA bus routes 509 and 2, with additional monitors on the 4, 6, 9, 11, 17, 35, 205, and 551 routes providing further detail and contrast. By collecting data along these routes, we aim to create a detailed online air quality map of the valley. This map, developed in partnership with Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, and multiple community stakeholders, provides a clear picture of air quality variations across different neighborhoods.
HEAL Utah focus group and discussion with community members who live along and use the 509 bus route.
Focus group conducted with real-time translations in English and Spanish for discussion.
Focus group held at the Glendale Library, with participants compensated for their time.
Redlining, a discriminatory practice dating back to the 1930s, involved denying mortgages and insurance to residents of certain neighborhoods based on racial and socioeconomic composition. As a result, investment in infrastructure, housing, and services was disproportionately directed away from these areas. This led to a concentration of industrial activities and major transportation routes in Westside neighborhoods, contributing to higher levels of pollution and environmental degradation. (The Greenlining Institute) (Berkeley Public Health)
Our team worked closely with community members in developing this dashboard, hosting focus groups and discussions with community leaders to guide the project. We acknowledge there is still much for us to improve, but these collaborations have been essential in addressing the specific needs and concerns of the community.
A Path to Cleaner Air
Lexi Tuddenham, Executive Director of HEAL Utah, speaking at the Air Art & Alternative Transportation Festival, highlighting the launch of our new air quality dashboard.
One of our primary goals is to advocate for the upgrade of all Utah Transit Authority buses to electric. Additionally, we aim to provide environmental justice data to support policy solutions created with and by community members. The success of this project will highlight the importance of environmental conservation and air quality in public and policy discussions. This initiative seeks to uplift the health of Utahns and to support data-backed advocacy for environmental justice, offering underserved communities a platform to voice their environmental health concerns and experiences.
Clean Air Now’ – HEAL Utah at the Air Art & Alternative Transportation Event.
For more detailed information, visit the Salt Lake County Environmental Sustainability webpage
- Gross, T. (2017, May 3). A ‘forgotten history’ of how the U.S. government segregated America. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
- Greenlining Institute. (n.d.). Redlining was outlawed in 1968, why hasn’t home lending to communities of color improved? Greenlining Institute. Retrieved from https://greenlining.org
- Heglar, M. A. (n.d.). Why climate change is an environmental justice issue. State of the Planet, Columbia University. Retrieved from https://news.climate.columbia.edu
- RAND Corporation. (n.d.). Environmental racism: A tool for exploring the enduring legacy of redlining on urban environments. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org
- UC Berkeley. (2022). 50 years after being outlawed, redlining still drives neighborhood health inequities. Berkeley Public Health. Retrieved from https://publichealth.berkeley.edu
- Shandas, V., & Pendleton, N. (2021). Climate change and racism: A case study of redlining. McGill International Review. Retrieved from https://www.mironline.ca
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