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. 2018 Apr 23;18(1):538.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5418-5.

Assessing air quality index awareness and use in Mexico City

Timothy C Borbet  1 , Laura A Gladson  2 , Kevin R Cromar  3
Affiliations

Assessing air quality index awareness and use in Mexico City

Timothy C Borbet et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The Mexico City Metropolitan Area has an expansive urban population and a long history of air quality management challenges. Poor air quality has been associated with adverse pulmonary and cardiac health effects, particularly among susceptible populations with underlying disease. In addition to reducing pollution concentrations, risk communication efforts that inform behavior modification have the potential to reduce public health burdens associated with air pollution.

Methods: This study investigates the utilization of Mexico's IMECA risk communication index to inform air pollution avoidance behavior among the general population living in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. Individuals were selected via probability sampling and surveyed by phone about their air quality index knowledge, pollution concerns, and individual behaviors.

Results: The results indicated reasonably high awareness of the air quality index (53% of respondents), with greater awareness in urban areas, among older and more educated individuals, and for those who received air quality information from a healthcare provider. Additionally, behavior modification was less influenced by index reports as it was by personal perceptions of air quality, and there was no difference in behavior modification among susceptible and non-susceptible groups.

Conclusions: Taken together, these results suggest there are opportunities to improve the public health impact of risk communication through an increased focus on susceptible populations and greater encouragement of public action in response to local air quality indices.

Keywords: Air pollution; Air quality index; Behavior modification; Risk communication.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

New York University’s IRB, the University Committee on Activities Involving Human Subjects (UCAIHS), approved this project as exempt under IRB guidelines. Parametría, the polling company responsible for generating these data sets, received informed consent from participants.

Competing interests

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mexico City Metropolitan Area. Survey participants were from Mexico City boroughs or State of Mexico municipalities, as shown in the table. These regions are labeled and outlined in black in the map, and surveyed areas are shown for the State of Mexico (dark grey) and Mexico City (light grey). This map was generated by the authors using ArcGIS software [30]
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Respondents Familiar and Unfamiliar with Air Quality Index by Demographic. Figure shows a breakdown of respondents’ familiarity with the air quality index by demographics, including education, age, and gender. Dark lines reflect percentages of those in each category familiar with the air quality index; light lines show percentages of those unfamiliar with the index
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Familiarity with Air Quality Index by Respiratory Disease Status and Healthcare Provider Intervention. Graph shows percent of total respondents in each category that were familiar with the air quality index. Error bars show standard error. Four groups are compared, separated by those with (+) and without (−) a respiratory disease themselves or in a member of their household, and by those whose healthcare providers have (+) or have not (−) provided them with information about the risks of air quality. The brackets indicate significant differences between groups, labeled with their corresponding p-values
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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