Sensing bodies: urban exposure and asthma in Delhi, India

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Air pollution is a problem for health, society and the environment. Breathing polluted air can cause lung problems or make them worse. It is estimated that millions of people worldwide suffer from asthma. Yet, it is difficult to define what air pollution is, or identify exactly what its effects on health are. Across the world, there therefore many studies addressing pollution. They use different ways of trying to gather information about pollution. This project is about an air pollution study in Delhi, India, where there are high levels of pollution, and high levels of lung problems, particularly for young people. The air pollution study involves a new technology: sensors which can be worn on the body to measure pollution. Young people aged between 16 and 18 who have asthma will be wearing these sensors, and scientists will be studying the findings from the sensors to find out how air pollution is different in different places and changes over time. This proposed project involves working with the young people and the scientists from the air pollution study. It will look at how this research is making new ways of understanding the health effects of exposure to air pollution. The project will look at what it is like to wear these sensors, and how scientists use the information they provide. To do this, we will talk to the young people, and walk around the city with them as they are wearing the sensors. We will also interview the scientists, and observe how they do the research and what they do with the results. We will also use group workshops. These will explore how young people with asthma who wear these bodily-worn sensors understand, experience and contribute to scientific knowledge about air pollution and health. Studying how participants in this research use these personal sensors will provide knowledge about the social contexts of exposure and the way in which air pollution is seen (or not) as affecting health. The research will also raise awareness of the potential societal and ethical challenges of involving people in research about air pollution. The research aims to contribute to air pollution research involving personal sensors by examining how these may help us better understand the health effects of exposure, but also the potential risks and ethical problems that may arise as a result. This will be achieved by: i) Conducting interviews and walking interviews around Delhi with young people with asthma wearing the air pollution sensors on their body. ii) Drawing maps with some of the young people with asthma to understand how they manage their asthma as they move around the city. iii) To study how the young adults participating in the scientific research and scientists conducting the research interact and communicate. iv) Examine how the research in Delhi can be used to understand air pollution in other cities around the world. v) Share the findings from the interviews with the young adults with the scientists using these sensors in their research to consider their social and ethical implications. vi) Present the drawn maps by the young adults with asthma in exhibitions open to the public in London and Delhi. The research findings of this project will contribute to the development of policies that can help reduce exposure to air pollution and improve health. There is currently little knowledge about the ways in which some people are exposed to different levels of air pollution and therefore at higher risk of health problems. What is known, however, is that some people are more at risk to air pollution than others. This means the health effects of air pollution are not equally shared by society. Generating knowledge about how people use cities and why some people may be more at risk to pollution than others is urgently needed if we are going to help build cities that protect their citizens' health now and in the future.