Journal Article
Air pollution perception in ten countries during the COVID-19 pandemic
Baowen Lou; Diego Maria Barbieri; Marco Passavanti; Cang Hui; Akshay Gupta; Inge Hoff; Daniela Antunes Lessa; Gaurav Sikka; Kevin Chang; Kevin Fang; Louisa Lam; Brij Maharaj; Navid Ghasemi; Yaning Qiao; Solomon Adomako; Ali Foroutan Mirhosseini; Bhaven Naik; Arunabha Banerjee; Fusong Wang; Andrew Tucker; Zhuangzhuang Liu; Kasun Wijayaratna; Sahra Naseri; Lei Yu; Hao Chen; Benan Shu; Shubham Goswami; Prince Peprah; Amir Hessami; Montasir Abbas; Nithin Agarwal
Ambio · Vol. 51, Issue 3 · pp. 531-545 · 2022
Abstract
As largely documented in the literature, the stark restrictions enforced worldwide in 2020 to curb the COVID-19 pandemic also curtailed the production of air pollutants to some extent. This study investigates the perception of the air pollution as assessed by individuals located in ten countries: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the USA. The perceptions towards air quality were evaluated by employing an online survey administered in May 2020. Participants ( N = 9394) in the ten countries expressed their opinions according to a Likert-scale response. A reduction in pollutant concentration was clearly perceived, albeit to a different extent, by all populations. The survey participants located in India and Italy perceived the largest drop in the air pollution concentration; conversely, the smallest variation was perceived among Chinese and Norwegian respondents. Among all the demographic indicators considered, only gender proved to be statistically significant.