UC experts help California policymakers understand near-roadway air pollution
July 20, 2023
Staff from the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research (CHPR) are helping California policymakers understand near-roadway indoor air pollution. They are part of the California State Policy Evidence Consortium (CalSPEC), an initiative to leverage expertise across the University of California to support evidence-based policymaking, which will produce a non-partisan report for the California Assembly Natural Resources and Senate Environmental Quality Committees.
Indoor air pollution from gas stoves, furniture, paints, solvents, microplastics and other fixtures of modern life is increasingly recognized as hazardous to human health. This pollution can be compounded as outdoor air makes its way inside, with suspected heightened hazards for humans living and working in buildings located near roadways.
“Knowing that about 40% of the California population lives within 1,500 feet of a high traffic roadway, the State Legislature expressed a need to learn about the effects of exposure to pollution from roadway traffic and potential strategies to mitigate adverse impacts on human health,” said Dominique Ritley, co-director at CalSPEC and a senior health policy researcher at CHPR.
“CalSPEC is committed to bringing academic expertise to the policy community to increase use of evidence-based policy making with the goal of improving policy effectiveness. We are so pleased to be collaborating again with the legislative committees on identifying this important topic and answering their key questions.”
CalSPEC is committed to bringing academic expertise to the policy community to increase use of evidence-based policy making with the goal of improving policy effectiveness. —Dominique Ritley, co-director at CalSPEC and senior health policy researcher at the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research
CalSPEC is a project of UC Center Sacramento and seeks to enhance policy decision-making through rapid evidence and policy reviews on complex topics of concern or interest to the State Legislature. Previously, CalSPEC furnished the State Legislature with a report on microplastics.
CHPR affiliate and former director Richard Kravitz serves as co-director of CalSPEC. The CalSPEC team includes Katine Padilla, a project policy analyst at CHPR, and Bruce Abbott, health sciences librarian at UC Davis. The research team for the near-roadway indoor air pollution report includes experts from UCLA, UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Sydney.
About The Center for Healthcare Policy and Research
The Center for Healthcare Policy and Research’s (CHPR) mission is to facilitate research, promote education, and inform policy about health and healthcare. The goal is to improve the health of the public by contributing new knowledge about access, delivery, cost, quality and outcomes related to health care and providing rigorous evidence to policymakers and other stakeholders. CHPR executes its mission through interdisciplinary and collaborative research; education and career development; and research synthesis and dissemination. Learn about CHPR’s weekly seminar series and research themes and projects.
