This interdisciplinary review examines urban air quality as a coupled transport, health, and equity system. The organizing question is which interventions reduce population exposure rather than merely relocate monitored emissions. Ten related scholarly sources are synthesized through a decision-centered framework spanning problem definition, mechanism, measurement, evaluation, implementation, and governance. The review does not invent experiments, pooled estimates, or unreported quantitative results. It instead evaluates the strength and transferability of the available evidence, with particular attention to using citywide concentration averages to infer equitable health benefit. The resulting framework links technical or empirical performance to explicit use conditions and identifies tests that should precede wider adoption in clean-mobility and urban-health policy.
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- Di, Q., Wang, Y., Zanobetti, A., Wang, Y., Koutrakis, P., Choirat, C., Dominici, F., & Schwartz, J. D. (2017). Air Pollution and Mortality in the Medicare Population. New England Journal of Medicine, 376(26), 2513-2522. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa1702747 DOI
- Janhäll, S. (2015). Review on urban vegetation and particle air pollution – Deposition and dispersion. Atmospheric Environment, 105, 130-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.01.052 DOI
- Kelly, F. J., & Fussell, J. C. (2015). Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 37(4), 631-649. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-015-9720-1 DOI
- Manisalidis, I., Stavropoulou, E., Stavropoulos, A., & Bezirtzoglou, E. (2020). Environmental and Health Impacts of Air Pollution: A Review. Frontiers in Public Health, 8, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00014 DOI
- Rajagopalan, S., Al-Kindi, S. G., & Brook, R. D. (2018). Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 72(17), 2054-2070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2018.07.099 DOI
- Rentschler, J., & Leonova, N. (2023). Global air pollution exposure and poverty. Nature Communications, 14(1), 4432. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39797-4 DOI
- Sridharan, S., Kumar, M., Singh, L., Bolan, N. S., & Saha, M. (2021). Microplastics as an emerging source of particulate air pollution: A critical review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 418, 126245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126245 DOI
- Wang, T., Xue, L., Brimblecombe, P., Lam, Y. F., Li, L., & Zhang, L. (2016). Ozone pollution in China: A review of concentrations, meteorological influences, chemical precursors, and effects. The Science of The Total Environment, 575, 1582-1596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.081 DOI
- Wright, S. L., Ulke, J., Font, A., Chan, K. L. A., & Kelly, F. J. (2019). Atmospheric microplastic deposition in an urban environment and an evaluation of transport. Environment International, 136, 105411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.105411 DOI
- Journal
- Global Questions: An Interdisciplinary Review
- Volume
- 1 (2026)
- Article number
- gq20260003
- License
- CC BY 4.0
