New app lets you check air quality as easily as checking the weather

Yareli Sanchez lives in Los Angeles and jogs regularly, but she never used to know if the day’s air quality was bad until after she had already set out for a run — her chest would tighten and it would become hard to breathe. She knew poor air quality triggered her asthma, but she didn’t have a convenient way to check the day’s pollution levels. For the past few months, instead of using trial-and-error, she’s checked UCLA’s new AirForU app, which uses GPS data to give her local air quality ratings. The app is useful for anyone in the U.S. who sees a hazy skyline and wonders how safe it is to breathe outside air. “I depend on the AirForU app now, and I use it every time I plan on running,” said Sanchez, who helped test it before its launch. “The app is really convenient for helping me manage my asthma and minimize my exposure to pollution.” The free app, released today on iPhone and Android, delivers local air-quality measurements directly to the user’s phone. It provides real-time updates every hour and a prediction for the next day. Asthmatics, families planning a trip to the playground, people who exercise outside and anyone else concerned with air quality can use the app to make decisions about where and whether to go outdoors. “The AirForU app tells people how bad the air quality is in the places they care about, like their neighborhood, their place of work or their favorite park,” said Magali Delmas, a professor of environmental economics at UCL...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news