U.S.-Indo Air Quality and Health Workshop

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Abstract The 2014 publication of the World Health Organization's urban air quality database indicates that 13 of the world's 25 most polluted cities are located within India. President Obama and Prime Minister Modi recognized the socioeconomic implications of this question and agreed to launch bilateral air quality cooperation to help urban dwellers reduce their exposure to harmful levels of ambient air pollution and enable urban policy planners to implement corrective strategies. This application requests funds to support a workshop to initiate and facilitate discussions for establishing strategies for U.S.-India collaborations to improve air quality in India. The research advances and their contribution to new regulations and policies, however, is moving forward rapidly in some countries but less so in others. Numerous studies have evaluated the global risk of exposure to ambient particles and gases. A major finding of these efforts is the recognition that pollutant sources and thus the composition of ambient particles, for example, can vary tremendously from region to region or season to season. However, despite the recognition that India's urban centers have some of the poorest air quality in the world, the specific sources that contribute to the pollution of India's ambient air have not been well addressed. In order to efficiently and effectively focus remediation efforts, we propose to bring together researchers from the U.S. and India to establish pathways for the identification of India-specific pollution sources and the research and policy changes that will be necessary to `clean' the air.