The Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) research suggests a majority of Canadians live in areas where levels of air pollution now exceed recently updated WHO air quality guidelines, which can damage their health.
UTTRI associated faculty Dr. Jeffrey Brook, Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, and CANUE’s Principal Investigator and Scientific Director, comments in a news article.
“Our most polluted part of Canada would be the Windsor, Sarnia towards Montreal, Quebec City (corridor),” Brook said. “But increasingly, our most serious air pollution problems in Canada are where there’s forest fires.”
While it’s hard to stop pollution from wildfires, Canada can also work on reducing pollution from traffic and other urban sources, Brook said. “Every improvement and exposure reduction is a benefit.”