How healthcare sector can use air quality data

“Air pollution is a threat to health in all countries, but it hits people in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) the hardest,” – WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

It’s evident that a high concentration of pollutants in the air is destroying the ecosystem and affecting health all over the world. The WHO has reported exposure to air pollution has caused an estimated seven million premature deaths and reduced more healthy years of life among million others.

There are many environmental toxins that are of concern, but those with the most potency levels include Particulate Matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulphur dioxide (SO2). PM2.5 is of utmost concern since these microscopic particles penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream, and travel to organs causing systemic damages to tissues and cells.

Tracking the levels of these toxins and air quality, in general, can provide a myriad of benefits across the spectrum, especially in healthcare. Armed with this big data, healthcare organisations and policymakers can make necessary changes that will help patients around the world. Let’s look at some advances in air quality tracking that directly impact healthcare.

Accurate assessment

With real-time monitoring, addressing variations in global pollution levels is seamless. Ambee’s Global Air Pollution, for instance, provides accurate environmental intelligence in real-time. The data is derived from a robust network of on-ground sensors and multiple geostationary satellites. This air quality data can be integrated to assess patients’ illnesses accurately by healthcare providers, doctors and other digital health-monitoring companies. A protocol can be developed for variations in air quality-related conditions by targetting, investing and enhancing respiratory treatments in these high-risk locations. For insurers, environmental intelligence helps design newer, innovative ways to assess health risks and offer personalised premiums. In this space, digital therapeutics company, Wellthy, supports insurers, doctors and professionals by analysing a patient’s health status with ambient environmental data such as air quality. Health risk assessment becomes accurate and supports the customisation of patient-specific treatment plans or policies. Plus, weather, air quality, pollen and water vapour insights can help physicians design treatments like the asthma inhaler with a sensor or ‘smart’ inhaler that’s integrated with an app to collect important data.

Indian pharma giant Lupin, in collaboration with Aptar pharma, has integrated Ambee’s air quality data into its smart inhaler, Adhero that assists patients with chronic respiratory diseases. Adhero helps track the MDI usage and facilitates improved adherence to the prescribed therapy. The linked app sends reminders, provides contextual health alerts based on air-quality levels of the current location, and has visual analytics. Additionally, doctors and researchers take air quality into account throughout the treatment, research and development stages to ensure their clinical trials remain accurate and effective.

Pharma support

Pharma and medical companies depend on precise air quality data provided by environmental intelligence companies for research and development. The majority of today’s significant pharma concerns revolve around the changing climate and increasing pollution rates. Air quality data makes drug discovery faster, cheaper and efficient. It plays a vital role in developing new medicines, identifying problems, and streamlining new drug production.

Air quality intelligence can assist with the marketing processes by facilitating efficient resource allocation. After all, targetted marketing practices have 60 per cent more penetration into the market than a one-for-all campaign. Invesp reports that 56 per cent of online consumers become loyal to the company when they get personalised recommendations.

Even inventory and stock management can benefit from air quality data, whether sourcing drugs or predicting what and when to stock up. Valuable visual, qualitative, and quantitative data acquired by pharma companies from environmental intelligence providers simplify the process and establish efficiency. Many pharma chain companies tap into Ambee’s large pool of environmental intelligence to process, evaluate and decide patterns for their operations.

Personalised patient care

Healthcare companies can provide relevant and accurate air quality data to patients sensitive to specific allergens or pollutants. Juli. Co, a digital health monitoring startup, found that prevention by monitoring is the best way to keep an individual’s health intact. The startup has integrated air quality data into its platform to alert its patients and provide personalised recommendations beforehand.

Juli’s platform supports healthcare professionals in making informed judgments based on patient behaviour and ambient air quality. Customised alerts and notifications significantly impact one’s health and wellbeing. Furthermore, patients can better grasp their situation, prevent unnecessarily hurting their health with an experimental treatment, and opt for the product that best suits their criteria.

Air quality data essentially provides doctors with a bird’s-eye view, allowing them to understand the plethora of complicated relationships. When merged with patient data, air quality data can predict health issues such as asthma and rhinitis, depending on genetics. Healthcare professionals can customise treatment plans based on medical history and location-specific environmental intelligence. As technology develops, the healthcare sector will use big data with medical history to predict and even diagnose more diseases accurately.

Way forward

As part of the fourth industrial revolution, technology will continue to permeate all aspects of our lives. What’s more, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and other innovations are developing new ways to directly mitigate the effects of climate change through sustainable solutions. Healthcare is no exception. This exploration of technology and new data science techniques in healthcare will save more lives than ever before.