Health of Population in Transition Research Group

The award will support the installation of a reference-grade air quality monitor in Yaoundé, Cameroon. In addition to providing continuous, real-time air quality data this monitor will also serve to calibrate a network of low-cost air pollution sensors deployed across the city, significantly enhancing monitoring resolution. This initiative will be a first of its kind in Yaoundé, a city grappling with severe air pollution from traffic emissions, suspended dust, biomass fuel use, slash-and-burn practices, and seasonal Harmattan dust storms. The air quality data generated will be a vital resource for evidence-based awareness, policy advocacy, and action.

Firstly, we plan to use the evidence to be generated from this project to tell a better contextually-aligned story of the state of air quality in the city of Yaounde, with some spatio-temporal dynamics. Secondly, we hope to sensitize and raise awareness among Yaounde city-dwellers on the causes and consequences of air pollution based on local evidence, and discuss what they can do about it. Thirdly, we wish that these can provoke even a single ripple in the calm sea of actions that may eventually lead to policies and interventions!

Dr Felix K. Assah, Senior Lecturer of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The University of Yaounde