Community Update
11/1/2021
Globally Unified Air Quality is committed to keeping you informed on key air quality news. Stay updated on our company progress and air quality efforts!
“More than four in ten Americans (41.1%–more than 135 million Americans) are living in the 217 counties across the nation with monitors that are capturing unhealthy levels ozone or particle pollution.”
Company Updates
The GUAQ team has continued to make exciting progress on both the business and technical fronts. We are proud to announce that GUAQ was selected as the winner of the Accelerate 2022 pitch competition! Huge thank you to Mr. Brian Hays for providing us with this opportunity. With this support, we plan on further expanding our network of monitors, with our most recent deployment location being The Georgetown Venture Lab at WeWork.
In other news, we spoke to the Austrian Delegation at the Georgetown Venture Lab about innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education. We were honored to take part in this dialogue with the Austrian Federal Minister for Science, Education, and Research.
Minister Faßmann handing gift bag of chocolates to GUAQ CEO Anna Giaquinto
Austrian Delegation and Georgetown Venture Lab Representatives
Additionally, we are excited to announce that the web version of our mobile application is now live! Check it out here or at app.guaq.tech. Some additional improvements include tooltips on graph visualizations and configurable time ranges for the Dashboard page. We strive to make accessing your air quality data as easy as possible. Whether it be from your phone or from your laptop, you can now retrieve real-time data and air quality analysis everywhere you go. Have any new features you would like to see in the GUAQ application? Give us your input!
Air Quality News
Global study shows cutting carbon emissions and air pollution in cities has the potential to dramatically improve child health
October 29, 2021
“New estimates suggest 20,000 childhood asthma cases and 65,000 adverse birth outcomes could be prevented annually by achieving 'net zero' in 16 cities.”
Air pollution caused 1.1m deaths across Africa in 2019
October 18, 2021
“No fewer than 1.1 million people died across Africa in 2019 due to air pollution, with household air pollution driven largely by indoor cookstoves accounting for 700,000 fatalities, while increased outdoor air pollution claimed 400,000 lives.”
Map: Air pollution kills millions worldwide. In the western U.S., the air is only getting worse.
October 6, 2021
“The World Health Organization has issued strict new standards for air pollution levels, and data suggests that the air in many regions across the United States contains much higher levels of dangerous matter than the standards recommend.”
New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution
September 22, 2021
“Almost 80% of deaths related to PM 2.5 could be avoided in the world if the current air pollution levels were reduced to those proposed in the updated guideline, according to a rapid scenario analysis performed by WHO.”
Poorly Circulated Room Air Raises Potential Exposure to Contaminants by up to 6 Times
September 22, 2021
“even when people are sitting more than 6 feet from each other, some occupants may be exposed to respiratory aerosols from others at a rate 5 to 6 times higher than if the same room were well mixed.”
UN: Brief gains in air quality in 2020 over COVID lockdowns
September 3, 2021
“The U.N. weather agency says the world — and especially urban areas — experienced a brief, sharp drop in emissions of air pollutants last year amid lockdown measures and related travel restrictions put in place over the coronavirus pandemic.”