Mobile phone data to support air pollution exposure assessment

Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risks to health according to the World Health Organization. Depending on the characteristics of the data sources we can organise the personal exposure assessment methods in two classification criteria: (i) spatial-temporal variations of individuals’ activities (point-fixed or trajectory-based) and (ii) characterisation of air quality (variable or uniform). In line with this approach, the paper presents a study based on Mobile Network Operator (MNO) data to evaluate spatial-temporal variations in human presence along with pollutant measurements to estimate people's exposure to air pollutants. MNO data enable a longitudinal analysis of human presence with high spatial and time resolution. This allows assigning different levels of air pollution exposure to the population at a specific time and in a specific location. The proposed method can be useful for policymakers to assess the crowdedness of air-polluted areas over time and to find suitable solutions to mitigate the exposure. In addition, our results can be exploited for improved estimation of the risks inherent to the population exposure to air pollution in urban areas and for epidemiological studies.