Improving air quality is one of the fastest, fairest ways to protect our health. Long-term improvements in air quality can slow the progression of numerous noncommunicable diseases and reduce the lifetime risk death. Just as it affects all parts of the body, air pollution requires a multi-system and multi-sectoral response.

The health sector as a whole, which bears much of the impact of air pollution, can provide much-needed support for Ministries of environment, energy, transportation and others, which are traditionally responsible for mitigation efforts. Yet while structural actions to mitigate pollution emissions are ultimately necessary to reduce harmful exposures, health care providers and members of the health workforce can also play several important roles as efforts towards mitigation are undertaken.

First, clinicians can advocate for air pollution mitigation as a health measure. Second, clinicians can provide patients with personal measures to reduce exposures and associated risk at the individual level. And finally, health care providers can integrate air pollution into disease management approaches. Find out more about air pollution advocacy efforts and tools below and across the webpages of this toolkit.​

BreatheLife is a global campaign and network led by WHO, CCAC, UNEP and World Bank launched in 2016 at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador with national and city leaders calling for action on air pollution, climate change and health.

This initiative has raised the political commitment of policy-makers to lead urban, national and regional campaigns to build awareness of emerging evidence of the health impacts of air pollution, scale-up local policy interventions to meet WHO’s air quality guidelines.  

Building on the health sector’s influential position over 70 countries, regions and cities have joined BreatheLife – reaching over 486 million people, raising local best practices to a global profile, while localizing messages which link health, climate and economic benefits to clean air.

The BreatheLife Campaign supports air pollution and health awareness-raising strategy through:  

• A global communications platform -- visualizing WHO's data in combination with web content to drive forward the global story of air pollution.  
• Develop online space for members to share experiences, challenges and best practices for local governance, and for promoters to share tools and resources for implementing solutions.  
• Raising the ambition to reduce air pollution, mitigate climate change and improve health by meeting WHO’s air quality guidelines.
• Providing communication material such as articles, videos, infographics and an interactive tool to check city pollution levels.