July 5th 2011, the 55th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, saw the launch of the Healthy Air Campaign. Spearheaded by Environmental Protection UK the campaign brings together a coalition of health, environment and transport charities to increase public awareness and understanding of the health impacts of air pollution and help communities reduce those impacts.
The campaign will:

• Promote active lifestyles among individuals, as part of a joined-up sustainable transport, air quality and public health approach within communities,
• Drive action to effectively monitor, report and reduce air pollution at a local and national level,
• Advocate a new government air quality and public health strategy integrated across departments.

Professor Kelly said "The reason why I am very happy to support the Healthy Air Campaign is that scientists are no longer in any doubt that poor air quality is affecting the quality of life of those who live in towns and cities across the UK. Moreover, the health costs placed on the NHS budget dwarf the money needed to fund new policies to deal with our air quality problem. All of us who own motor vehicles need to realise we are part of the problem and hence we are part of the solution. However to achieve this, we need to improve public understanding and awareness of the air quality problem. It is only then that we can expect people to make better, well informed decisions about how they travel and importantly, indicate to their respective politician that they should be brave enough to support the introduction of the innovative policies needed to ultimately solve this 21st century public health challenge".

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Item date 06/07/2011