The Use of Remote Sensing in Air Pollution Control and Public Health

Due to the significant increase of environmental and health problems in recent years, remote sensing has become an alternative for finding new opportunities to minimize their impact. Thus, different options now exist to support public health interventions in Latin America, where resources to create prevention policies are limited compared to developed regions. Some developing countries do not have air pollution control measures because these are not considered the main focus of their current environmental policy in comparison to developed countries. However, it is well known that air pollution has significant negative impacts on respiratory health, which makes its control a priority. Remote sensing data are becoming a cost-effective alternative in Latin American countries for monitoring and controlling air pollution to improve public health. This chapter focuses on the use of remote sensing applied to air pollution control with an emphasis on public health. The chapter discusses examples of applied remote sensing methodologies in various Latin American cities and introduces an approach to analyzing the relationships between air quality and public health outcomes in Quito, Ecuador using land use regression models. The different remote sensing approaches discussed here could support Latin American public health authorities with the implementation of concrete public health interventions.