ISES abstract: Air Pollution Accountability Research: Moving from a Causal Chain to a Web
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This presentation describes the outcome of Workshop on Accountability in Air Pollution Regulations and Research: Advancing the Science on Temporality Issues; Baltimore, Maryland; April 2023 in which an interdisciplinary group of scientists convened to examine key factors of air pollution accountability research and develop recommendations for incorporating those factors into future accountability studies. The objectives of this workshop were to: 1) offer a modified accountability chain framework for evaluating the relationships between an air pollution policy change and potential downstream impacts on population health outcomes; 2) identify research gaps and challenges; and 3) recommend research to improve the design and conduct of accountability studies.
We re-envisioned the accountability chain as an accountability web to better convey the difficulties and nuances associated with conducting accountability studies, and to highlight factors that should be considered when designing these studies. These factors include advances in air pollution data and models, regulatory/non-regulatory events (e.g., changes in motor vehicle use), population changes, health status information, personal activity data, and changes in exposure to other stressors (e.g., indoor air pollution).
We presented eight recommendations as guides to design, conduct, and interpret future accountability studies. 1. Increase multidisciplinary collaboration: 2. Invest in methods for studying local-scale policy impacts: 3. Improve estimates of personal exposure: 4. Harmonize and improve access to data resources: 5. Focus on health outcomes causally related to the ambient pollutant of concern: 6. Incorporate appropriate study designs and statistical tools: 7. Distinguish between effects of simultaneous policy interventions: 8. Improve generalizability of accountability studies.