Understanding the lived experience of people affected by poor air quality

The Need

Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, an independent urban health foundation, wanted to further understand the issue of air pollution to help the organisation make informed choices about how to focus their air pollution programme to have the greatest impact for citizens and local vulnerable groups.

Our Approach

Opinium conducted this in two phases of research. In the first stage, 400 street intercept surveys and vox pops investigated the lived experiences of specific and vulnerable demographic resident groups. The second stage focused on an in-depth, ethnographic approach and involved conducting 6 filmed in-home interviews with vulnerable residents. As part of this research we investigated important issues affecting the local area, perceptions and causes of air pollution, attitudes towards responsibility, individual action being taken and perceived effectiveness of air pollution initiatives.

“Opinium provided us with the support and consultancy we needed and brought lots of interesting and well thought-out ideas to the table to help us tackle the challenge of reaching specific vulnerable groups in the local area. As well as this, the way they brought the research to life helped us to engage different audiences and have an impact with stakeholders. We hope to work with them again in the future.”

The Outcome

Opinium supported with the production of a full in-depth report outlining recommendations to help the charity move forward with their air pollution programme to make the greatest impact for those most vulnerable residents. Video output from the vox-pops and filmed interviews were also provided for use in external communications and help bring the data to life to engage different audiences.

Click here to view a summary report

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