Dr. Maria Obiminda Cambaliza together with Dr. John Wong, MD, attended a meeting hosted by Academia Sinica regarding the planning and development of a long-term project on air quality and health. The meeting was held in Taipei, Taiwan from 17 -19 May 2019.
Dr. Shih-Chun Candice Lung of Future Earth-Taipei hosted the 15 research groups from the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry – Monsoon Asia and Oceania Networking Group (IGAC – MANGO) in developing new projects as a follow-up to the 2017 meeting on the Advanced Institute on Disaster Risk Reduction with Systems Approach for Slow-Onset Climate Disasters (AI – SOCD).
The holistic aim of the project is to investigate the health effects of air pollution sources unique to the monsoon-Asia region. These sources, ranging from cultural to social practices, as well as rapid urbanization, are not well-studied. The project hopes to fill-in the knowledge gaps by studying these sources using low-cost sensors. The shared data from the different research groups will be used to help in policy-making regarding public health and air quality in the region.
Currently, the project is entering its first phase, which is expected to run until 2022.
Dr.Cambaliza has been engaged with Academia Sinica for a project on health impacts of PM2.5 on jeepney drivers in Metro Manila. As part of this engagement, Dr. Lung gave a talk last November 2018 at the Observatory.