Magnus Johansson
The funding is granted within the call Explore – Innovative research for environment, agriculture and spatial planning 2025 and will support the project “From sensor to cell to society: a framework for air pollution, health risks and pathways to climate-dependent solutions.”
Joyanto Routh is a professor at the Department of Thematic Studies, Environmental Change, and will lead the project.
’’By linking air pollution from daily activities, such as biomass-based cooking and indoor heating, with anthropogenic emissions from traffic and power plants, this Indo-Swedish collaboration captures real-world exposure pathways and their respiratory-health impacts. It emphasizes real-time measurements, supports early preparedness, uncovers hidden pollution risks, and enables targeted preventive actions in vulnerable communities’’, says Joyanto Routh.
New methods reveal the health impacts of air pollution
The project applies an integrated, interdisciplinary approach by combining data from low-cost sensors with chemical analyses and biological studies of how pollutants affect human cells. The aim is to deepen understanding of health risks and how they are intensified by climate change, for example during heatwaves.
The research will be carried out in both Sweden, where traffic and residential wood burning are major sources of air pollution, and in the Indo Gangetic Plains in India, one of the most polluted regions in the world. By comparing different societal contexts, the project seeks to generate knowledge and solutions relevant for policy, urban planning and climate action.
The new grant builds on an ongoing Formas-funded project on air pollution, the "The CHEERS (Climate–Health–Exposure and Emissions of Reactive Substances) Framework: Preparing for a Chemically Safe and Climate-Resilient Future)", for which Joyanto Routh was awarded approximately SEK 3 million in November 2025.
