MIT researchers made jaw-dropping discoveries by changing the way they measure exposure to air pollution. Imagine how ineffective a weather forecast would be if meteorologists assumed that no one ever left their homes. Now, imagine that instead of rain, the troubled forecast was trying to quantify the single biggest health risk facing city dwellers: air pollution.
That?s right folks, most of our existing epidemiological studies into urbanites? exposure to air pollution have failed to account for the fact that we move around in our cities. Instead, researchers assessed toxic exposure based on where subjects live, rather than where they travel and spend the most time during the day.
But now, a new study from MIT?s Senseable City Lab is upending this status quo. By harnessing cellular network information, researchers can see where urban populations move throughout the day, leading to better understanding of exposure to pockets of pollution. The MIT study focused on on a particularly pernicious airborne particle, PM2.5?which is linked to asthma, heart disease, and poor lung function.
Illustration by Wonyoung So & Hyemi Song, MIT Senseable City Lab via The Guardian

Overlaying movement information onto measurements of PM2.5, MIT?s researchers found that many more people were exposed to pollution in midtown Manhattan, Queens, and central Brooklyn than previously believed. Those numbers also shifted depending on the time of day, with fewer people ex...