It was International Women’s Day last Sunday so we’ve been saving this one up. There is much commentary about whether it’s right to have ‘just’ a day and whether that distracts from women’s challenges and achievements every single day. In the world of air quality, the focus on women is often forgotten, so any opportunity to raise awareness is important.
Louise made just this point at the Women’s Health Horizons Conference on Tuesday this week at Fishmongers Hall. She was invited onto a panel including Mete Coban (Deputy Mayor of London, committed to air quality, proven by turning up for a 3 hour bike ride on a Sunday last June and walking for 2 hours through the heat of midday earlier that month). The panel was chaired by Dr Israa Siddig and also featured Marie Morice. Professor Mala Rao gave the keynote, covering the impact on women’s health of climate change and called out the additional vulnerability many women face due to unclean cooking fuels.
Louise was asked to cover the landscape - what we are missing and who is filling the gaps, where does accountability fall short, and how innovation can accelerate progress. She covered the two main ways the gender disparity in air pollution impacts can be considered:
differences related to lifestyle such as more informal work, arguably less active travel and potentially more childcare for children affected by pollution
biological differences including likelihood of dementia, different reaction to diesel fumes, different cardiovascular reactions (particularly post-menopausal), potential links to endometriosis, PCOS and disrupted menstrual cycles, fertility and pregnancy complications and breast cancer risk factors (though just after her talk she spotted a new study on lung cancer risks for women - yet another to add to the list!)
On the wider system, she shouted out the Royal College of Obstetrician and Gynaecologists’ work, as well as our interaction via Air Aware Labs with researchers in this field at KCL/GSTT. However the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan, doesn’t mention impact on women at all, nor does the 10 Year Health Plan (a notable exception to this rule is the 2022 Chief Medical Officer’s report which covers it from many angles).
On innovation, the work to make environmental data relevant to day-to-day lives, and then connect to health metrics contained in wearable devices was highlighted (see our latest blog with the World Economic Forum - out this week!)
In her comments, Louise drew from a recent Air Aware Labs article, as well our last blog on this topic. These should include all relevant evidence for the points made.
Finally central
It was fantastic that a health conference - more particularly, a women’s health conference - put environmental health front and centre in their schedule. Louise stayed for the rest of the day and learnt a lot about the wider context of women’s health including social media censorship, investment landscape, data bias and routes to medical devices vs wellness products. So much work still to do, but these events galvanise energy and build alignment!