Southern Africa-UK Network on Child Health and Air Pollution

Our grant proposal aims to establish a robust network led by our partnership team in Southern Africa and the UK, with a central focus on air pollution and child health. This research area was chosen because whilst air pollution affects everyone, children and adolescents are especially susceptible as their bodies, organs and immune systems are still developing. Whilst there have been excellent systematic reviews on the topic, there has been no mapping reviews which span the full health impacts for children across the full suite of air pollutants. Our proposal seeks to develop a network of academics and policy makers interested understanding the current evidence base, and subsequently, developing research proposals for priority questions which will address key gaps in the field. This collaboration will benefit all those in the research network and will also spearhead further research in the field. We will prioritise the importance of capacity building among early career researchers, whereby less experienced colleagues will be partnered with more established network members to identify future research opportunities. We are also committed to understanding what equitable research between Global North and Global South partners looks like and will co-develop guidelines to aid future researchers.