Across Ghana, everyday activities—gold mining, grain milling, open-air work in mechanic yards, and congested transport hubs—regularly elevate pollution. Yet the communities closest to these pollution sources often lack consistent, site-level monitoring that can inform and help them understand their exposure.
Physicist and lecturer Dr. Christiana Odumah is addressing this gap with her University of Cape Coast team, using IQAir AirVisual Outdoor monitors to track pollution levels and communicating the results to change daily practices on the ground.
Choosing a path forward
Dr. Odumah’s journey began in physics, researching contaminant transport in the atmosphere, especially mercury. Now at the University of Cape Coast, she teaches Air Pollution & Emission Control and Air Quality Management, and leads a field program that measures exposure, sharing practical guidance with communities and policymakers.
“Air pollution is a serious issue, and we all need to work on it,” Dr. Odumah said. “When the air is polluted, before you can even say where it came from, it has already traveled to other people.”
Building a monitoring network
The team needed monitors that could handle harsh conditions and require minimal maintenance. They selected IQAir AirVisual Outdoor monitors as the backbone of the network. “They’re rugged enough for heat and dust, straightforward to deploy, and it’s easy to share our data publicly,” Dr. Odumah said.
The University of Cape Coast’s network covers high-exposure settings across Ghana and publishes live to IQAir’s air quality platform. Stations include:
- Gold-mining communities — valley towns near active mining operations, where cooler, still air can trap pollution overnight.
- Mechanic workshops — open-air spray painting, welding, and grinding that impact daytime pollution spikes.
- Campus & transport hubs — taxi stands and arterial roads with predictable rush-hour peaks.
- Neighborhood milling centers — locally built grain and cassava mills that vent outdoors.
Each site acts as both a data point and a conversation starter—not only coming together to paint a fuller picture of the air quality across Ghana but helping communities see, in the data, the pollution they experience—so they can act on it.
Turning data into decisions
Real-time, new-found visibility into the air quality is changing routines. The team analyzes pollution trends across the station locations, using the AirVisual Platform, to recommend low-cost, high-impact habits—from establishing simple personal protective equipment (PPE) norms and guidelines to regular road wetting near mine haul routes.
“The platform includes particle pollution, temperature, pressure, humidity, and downloading the data is straightforward,” says Dr. Odumah, noting too that the platform makes trend analysis easier, enabling the team to provide practical guidance.
“When the air is polluted, before you can even say where it came from, it has already traveled to other people.”—Dr. Christiana Odumah, University of Cape Coast
Education and empowerment
The air quality monitors double as teaching tools. In lectures and informal workshops, Dr. Odumah’s team walks through what PM2.5 is, why some places experience worse elevated levels at certain times, and how small choices—mask use, ventilation, timing—compound into real protection and health benefits. Students help maintain stations and interpret patterns, building local capacity for work that will last beyond this specific project.
Looking ahead
The path forward combines academic rigor and reach. Dr. Odumah explained that two publications are fully drafted and a third is almost complete. “We’re hoping to submit three papers by year-end,” she said.
Next, the team plans to broaden the network and provide actionable playbooks for millers, mechanics, schools, and local authorities. Trials with secondary-pollutant sensors are planned to complement the insights already gathered. And in Tarkwa, a station will be kept in place to serve the community long-term. Dr. Odumah said: “They need constant monitoring, even if it means I can’t redeploy that unit for research.”
Conclusion
Air pollution is often invisible—but its effects are not. By putting monitors where people live and work, Dr. Christiana Odumah’s team is helping communities turn numbers into know-how—and know-how into healthier habits.
The model is simple and scalable: measure what matters, share it widely, and act together to bring clean air to the community. As Dr. Odumah said, “If people realize their health is at risk, they’ll find ways to cut emissions. That’s why we need this monitoring—so the community can act.”
