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A Breath of Fresh Air: New Royal College of Physicians report launched with input from York researchers

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Posted on Thursday 26 June 2025

Dr Sarah Moller and Professor Ally Lewis contributed their ideas on how to create air pollution policy fit for the future to a recently published report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP).
Application of complexity science: This diagram shows some of the potential impacts of promoting active travel. The impacts form ‘reinforcing’ cycles that encourage the system to continue changing in the same direction, which in this case is to deliver increased active travel, lower pollution emissions and better public health. Visualisation of data extracted from system map reported in ‘Adopting
Application of complexity science: This diagram shows some of the potential impacts of promoting active travel. The impacts form ‘reinforcing’ cycles that encourage the system to continue changing in the same direction, which in this case is to deliver increased active travel, lower pollution emissions and better public health. Visualisation of data extracted from system map reported in ‘Adopting a Whole Systems Approach to Transport Decarbonisation, Air Quality and Health: An Online Participatory Systems Mapping Case Study in the UK’.

The RCP ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’ report provides the latest evidence on the effects of air pollution on health. Research has shown that there are links between air pollution and almost every organ system in the body. The impacts of poor air quality affect us throughout our lives, starting before we are born, all the way through to links with later life conditions such as dementia.

Sarah and Ally’s contribution to the report (sections 3.4 and 3.5) focus on future policy with three main themes:

  1. The current requirement to set a single, achievable target for the whole country leaves much of the country seemingly classified as having air that is clean enough, despite there being no lower limit for where health impacts occur. Considering what could be done to require continual improvement everywhere would support ambitious local councils like City of York Council to demonstrate the need for action, despite local pollution levels being legally within existing limits.
  2. Industry innovation can deliver air quality improvements without the regulatory push for it. A good example is demonstrated in work by York PhD student Lucy Webster on nitrogen dioxide emissions from hydrogen combustion engines for construction equipment.
  3. Air pollution is a ‘wicked problem’ resulting from multiple, highly interconnected systems such as transport, energy and urban environments. By considering interactions that cut across policy areas and disciplines there is greater potential to identify what unintended consequences might occur from taking action, why policies work or don’t work, and what action could make beneficial outcomes more likely.

All of these are areas of research interest for Sarah and Ally and their research groups at York. 

Notes to editors:

Royal College of Physicians Report, A breath of fresh air: responding to the health challenges of modern air pollution