A program in Greater Cincinnati is teaching people to monitor and combat air pollution in their backyards.
Groundwork Ohio River Valley is hosting its annual air quality program next month. It’s open to residents of Covington, Winton Hills, the West End and Forest Park. Sign ups are open now.
“Our overarching goal is always to think about what the air quality looks like in a community and how it's impacting people's daily lives,” said Senior Program Director Jaeydah Edwards.
The American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air" report named the Cincinnati metro area as the 14th worst in the nation for year-round particle pollution.
Neighborhoods near highways and industry, and places that were historically redlined and have higher rates of poverty, are disproportionately affected by air pollution. That hurts residents’ health and contributes to diseases including asthma, stroke and cancer.
Edwards says participants in the program will learn about these health hazards of air pollution, build air quality monitors and collect data during several workshops.
“[We’ll] also do a mobile walking route where we’ll get a monitor and we'll put it on a backpack. [We’ll] walk through a neighborhood, through heavy industry, there might be some factories around, or maybe it's a high-traffic roadway,” Edwards said. “We'll talk about why the air quality is changing in different parts of the area that we're walking through.”
She says once Groundwork determines a neighborhood is experiencing a lot of poor air quality, it can take a long time to clean it up. The program equips participants with small solutions to reduce their daily exposure to harmful pollution.
“Whether that looks like keeping an air quality monitor in their homes, getting an air filter, maybe even purchasing some air purifying plants, or spending some more time in a green space or near trees... I just want people to know that there are small things that you can do while you're waiting for that bigger impact to occur,” Edwards said.
Program participants also will plant a pollinator garden in Lower Price Hill to help clean the air.
Edwards says people will receive a stipend for participating in each workshop.
Groundwork’s air quality program is an extension of its Climate Safe Neighborhoods program, which works with people from climate-vulnerable communities to teach them about climate change and create a resilience plan to respond to its effects. The plans can includes green infrastructure projects that improve air quality.
Groundwork is hosting this year’s air quality program for residents from Covington, Winton Hills, the West End and Forest Park because they most recently participated in the Climate Safe Neighborhoods program.
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