As part of the Breathe Easy Dallas project started in 2017, the city of Dallas, The Nature Conservancy and Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) have installed neighborhood air quality monitors in nine Dallas neighborhoods. Breathe Easy Dallas is designed to advance scientific understanding and application of local air monitoring for improved public health outcomes among high-risk populations.

Susan Alvarez, assistant director of environmental compliance & sustainability, says, “This project will give us better insight on neighborhood-level air quality while also advancing the state of the science related to this equipment.” The instruments have been calibrated to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality standards to determine overall air quality in Dallas.

Kathy Jack, Dallas Healthy Cities Program director at The Nature Conservancy in Texas, notes, “In deploying these air monitors in the field, we embark on a critical, one-year study that will provide us with the data necessary to better understand the role that local air quality plays in relation to pediatric asthma. The collected data will be shared with local health and community stakeholders to advance additional, parallel research efforts and inform future air quality related health interventions.”

The nine neighborhood locations were selected after a review of current Safe-Route-to-School program areas, along with available public health data relative to prevalence of childhood asthma, and racial and economic demographics.

For more information, call Danielle McClelland, Office of Environmental Quality & Sustainability at 214-843-5308, or email [email protected].