Scientific American celebrates Professor Kofi Amegah as environment change agent 

Albert Oppong-Ansah 

Accra, Oct. 30, GNA-Professor Kofi Amegah, an Associate Professor of Environmental and Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Cape Coast, has been named by Scientific American as an environment change agent. 

Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States, said Prof. Amegah was one of the leading persons working towards bridging the huge data gap on air pollution in Africa, especially Ghana. 

Three others – Ms Erica Cochran Hameen, an architectural designer based in the United States of America, Ms Johnnye Lewis, a scientist in Mexico and Ms Berendina Van Wendel De Joode, a Scientist based in Costa Rica have also been celebrated. 

Prof. Amegah, speaking to the Ghana News Agency, said the recognition was a big boost towards his goal of ensuring the public especially the city dwellers enjoyed clean air that would impact positively on public health. 

“This feels good and it gives me the impetus to do more. If you are working in Africa and people as far as America single you out as a change-making individual locally then it is massive,” he said. 

Prof. Amegah, who is also the Breathe Accra Project Lead, said more funding was needed to sustain the work in the sector, identify air-pollution hotspots in Ghana and educate policymakers and residents about how to address them. 

That could enable the government to make regulatory interventions, and also act as “a blueprint other cities in Africa can follow.” 

As of 2019, 99 per cent of the world’s population lived somewhere with air quality poorer than that recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. 

He said particulate matter in the air was a big issue in sub-Saharan African cities and that motivated him to find a way to gather data. 

“I financed the first low-cost sensor, calibrated and combined into networks to start my data collection,” he said. 

That Prof. Amegah said led to the start of the Ghana Urban Air Quality Project in Cape Coast in May 2019. 

The group he founded added two more in Accra by the end of its first year of operations.

The team, with support from partners, including the Clean Air Fund, had about 60 air-quality sensors deployed across Ghana in the cities of Accra, Tema, Cape Coast, Takoradi and Kumasi. 

The project has also integrated 10 donated, regulatory-grade PM2.5 monitors into the network to check the accuracy of the low-cost sensors. 

The sensor network, he said, was also advancing his epidemiology research, which centred on the health of street vendors, who were exposed to high levels of emissions from ageing cars and two-stroke motorcycle engines. 

“Women spend up to 12 hours selling their wares and then head home to cook meals over coal- or wood-burning stoves, their young children with them. And the neighbourhoods they live in are the most polluted in the urban landscape. The air is filled with road dust and smoke from burning trash,” Prof. Amegah noted. 

Air pollution in Ghana is exacting a heavy toll on both public health and the economy, yet it remains a largely overlooked issue. 

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has identified air pollution as the primary environmental risk factor in Ghana responsible for the majority of deaths and disabilities. 

Childhood exposure to polluted air leads to cognitive decline and even schizophrenia in adulthood, while respiratory problems afflict individuals from birth to old age, as documented by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). 

In Ghana, both indoor and outdoor sources contribute to air pollution, including solid fuel combustion for cooking and heating, waste incineration, vehicle emissions, and dust from unpaved roads.

… “This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the Clean Air Fund. The funder had no say in the content of the story…”
GNA