News·Nov 14, 2025

Targeted Air Pollution Investments Have the Potential to Extend Lives of Billions

Investment Update highlights the areas of the world that could benefit the most from funding to unleash air quality data and unlock national impacts.

The U.S. State Department shut down its overseas air monitoring program earlier this year. In doing so, 36 nations—home to 3.4 billion people—lost their only high quality source of information about the air they breathe. But, a new report from the EPIC Air Quality Fund highlights the opportunity this tougher landscape presents.

The 2025 Clean Air Investment Update, released at COP30, outlines where philanthropists could target funding to unlock outsized improvements in pollution and longer, healthier lives. It points to 83 countries as having a “higher opportunity” for impact, where a modest annual investment of $50,000-$100,000 USD could bring national clean air impacts. Together, 2.9 billion people live in these countries. They breathe air that is on average 4 times more polluted than the World Health Organization’s guideline, reducing their life expectancy by about 1.7 years or a total 4.9 billion life years, according to the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI).

Air pollution is a significant challenge globally, shortening lives more than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined—draining global GDP by 6 percent, or 1.5 times the cost of COVID-19 every year. Yet, less than 0.1 percent of global philanthropy is devoted to the issue. Forty-six of the report’s higher opportunity countries receive less than $190,000, combined, a year to confront air pollution.

“Air quality data is a prerequisite for action. It’s a basic building block that governments, organizations, and citizens need to work together on policy, enforcement and progress,” says Christa Hasenkopf, the director of the Clean Air Program at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “The lack of funding to support  basic data and human infrastructure required to manage air quality is missing in too many places. Targeted funding towards locally-led projects that measure and share data is one of the most powerful and durable ways to address this global challenge.”

The 2025 Clean Air Investment Update is an update to an earlier report that led to the creation of the EPIC Air Quality Fund last year. It employs the Opportunity Score, which estimates where a small investment—given directly to local organizations to support their visions for open data driving change—has the highest potential to generate national-level impact.This estimate prioritizes places with high pollution that are lacking in core air quality infrastructure like monitoring, open data, and national air quality standards—and also lack significant international development funding.

While not enough funding exists, the interest and expertise to drive change does exist in the countries where the EPIC Air Quality Fund is working. Based on the Opportunity Score, the Fund has awarded grants to more than 30 groups—from government to academia to civil society organizations—that are installing more than 700 monitors across 19 countries where citizens stand to gain a combined 2 billion life years, if their air were cleaner.

These small and strategic investments are already changing data landscapes and pushing forward national clean air action:

  • The Gambia: The Fund’s awardee, The Permian Health Lung Institute—a healthcare nonprofit—launched the country’s first air quality monitoring network. Government agencies are now using the data to generate new clean air policies. For example, a collaboration between the government and Permian Health led to the drafting of landmark environmental legislation that passed the Gambian Parliament.
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo:  The Fund Awardee WASARU has launched the only air quality open data monitoring network in Africa’s most polluted country, and 9th most polluted country in the world. They have subsequently been engaging with key government agencies and contributing to a draft national decree on environmental standards.
  • Pakistan: The Fund’s Awardee The Urban Unit, a government-related entity, has launched the country’s largest air quality monitoring network across a dozen cities, with the intent to use their data to inform national standards.

“Groups globally have demonstrated that modest, targeted investments can drive national clean air action,” says Hasenkopf. “Meanwhile, last year we received twice as many strong applications as we could fund—and our program ultimately had a lower acceptance rate than Harvard Law School. The constraint for cleaner air isn’t finding incredible high agency leaders—they already exist. It’s finding the funds to support them. Expanding that support unlocks one of the highest-return opportunities in global health today.”

The 2025 Clean Air Investment Update is available here.

To explore the latest data, visit the Opportunity Map here.

Interested in partnering with EPIC Air Quality Fund? Reach out to EPIC’s Clean Air Program Director, Christa Hasenkopf: chasenkopf@uchicago.edu.