Evaluation of smart phone open source applications for air pollution

Abstract

Global industrialization, urbanization and technological development have been rapidly changing the atmospheric composition. Air pollution is one of the most critical concerns to human and environmental health, causing respiratory, cardiovascular diseases and incidents of cancer, responsible for seven million premature deaths every year. While most of the major cities have some level of air quality monitoring, the data reported on the official websites are not easily accessed, and are rarely communicated to the citizens, mainly limited to the newspaper and television reports of extreme pollution events. A more efficient way to stay informed of the risks of exposure to bad air quality is a mobile application that can be accessed from anywhere. In this study, we evaluate available open source mobile phone applications for Android and iOS systems. Specifically, we analyze the usability and accessibility functions of the applications in the most populous and most contaminated South American capital cities.