Author reply to letter regarding "Gaps and future directions in research on health effects of air pollution".

We welcome and appreciate the letter from deMoura and da Silva Júnior. It raises important points regarding areas and gaps in air pollution research that also need consideration, with which we agree, but were among the issues we were unable to detail in our viewpoint, due to space limitations. We did note in our article the importance of better addressing low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) with regard to both air monitoring and the health burden, due to disproportionate exposures and effects, but agree that the specific issues highlighted by deMorura and da Silva Júnior are among those in urgent need of attention. Indeed, technological advances in air monitoring aimed at controlling air pollution will be most effective when there is a healthy and open transfer of knowledge between the scientific community/experts, the general public, and other stakeholders (including governmental agencies and policy makers).1Riley R. de Preux L. Capella P. Mejia C. Kajikawa Y. de Nazelle A. How do we effectively communicate air pollution to change public attitudes and behaviours? A review.Sustain Sci. 2021; 16: 2027-2047Crossref Scopus (8) Google Scholar Unfortunately, limited resources, a lack of political will, and insufficient environmental public education have slowed advancement of these efforts, particularly in LMICs.2Pinder R.W. Klopp J.M. Kleiman G. Hagler G.S.W. Awe Y. Terry S. Opportunities and challenges for filling the air quality data gap in low- and middle-income countries.Atmos Environ (1994). 2019; 215116794PubMed Google Scholar Thus, policies and measures in the past to mitigate air pollution were generally concentrated in more affluent and less diverse communities, which resulted in widening disparities in exposure and burden.3Spiller E. Proville J. Roy A. Muller N.Z. Mortality risk from PM2.5: a comparison of modeling approaches to identify disparities across racial/ethnic groups in policy outcomes.Environ Health Perspect. 2021; 129127004Crossref PubMed Scopus (11) Google Scholar Efforts to mitigate the adverse impacts of air pollution will no doubt require financial resources, in addition to research and technological advancements, which again will determine which sectors of society will benefit from these efforts in the future. It is particularly encouraging to observe the growing interest among scientists globally to focus their efforts towards the most affected and deserving communities by factoring in social determinants of health that impact air pollution exposure and burden in their research and proposed mitigatory strategies. Both authors (RV and GDT) contributed to the content of the letter and have read and approved the final version. The authors declare no competing interests. Letter to the editor: “Gaps and future directions in research on health effects of air pollution”Dear Editor, Full-Text PDF Open Access