An integrated climate-structured personal and ambient air pollution monitoring framework embedded within a pregnancy and postpartum cohort in Sub-Saharan Africa.
13 affiliations
- 1Department of Women and Children's Health, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
- 2Place Alert Labs, Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe.
- 3Centre for Sexual Health and HIV AIDS Research Zimbabwe (CeSHHAR), Harare, Zimbabwe.
- 4ISGlobal, Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
- 5Department of International Public Health, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
- 6MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Banjul, Gambia.
- 7Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça, Manhiça, Mozambique.
- 8Faculty of Medicine, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique.
- 9Centre of Excellence for Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, East Africa, Kenya.
- 10London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
- 11ICREA, Barcelona, Spain.
- 12British Columbia Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
- 13School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Abstract
Background
In sub-Saharan Africa, climatic variability intersects with structural inequities-biomass reliance, informal livelihoods, rapid urbanisation, and sparse regulatory monitoring-to generate highly heterogeneous air pollution exposures during pregnancy. Maternal exposure assessment in the region remains dominated by coarse ambient estimates, limiting understanding of how climate and microenvironment jointly shape actual personal exposure through their influence on pollutant generation, dispersion, and proximity to emission sources.Objective
To develop and implement an adaptable, climate-structured personal and ambient PM₂.₅ monitoring framework embedded within the PRECISE pregnancy cohort across The Gambia, Kenya, and Mozambique.Methods
A purposively sampled subset of 343 pregnant or postpartum women (The Gambia n = 160; Kenya n = 105; Mozambique n = 78) completed two 5-day deployments (with usable data) of wearable multi-parameter monitors in opposing dry and wet seasons. Devices recorded minute-resolved PM₂.₅, temperature, humidity, and mobility (GPS/accelerometry). Fixed-site monitors were installed at six health facilities to characterise background exposure and seasonal dynamics. Calibration combined repeated pre-deployment co-location with reference instrumentation and in-country inter-sensor harmonisation using Deming regression. Quality assurance incorporated a ≥75% ambient air pollution data completeness threshold, encrypted transfer, geolocation validation, and cross-site reproducibility checks. Meteorological data (NASA POWER/MERRA-2) were integrated to contextualise climatic drivers.Results
The protocol generated 3,190 person-days of personal exposure data together with 328 unique days of continuous ambient data. Ambient datasets achieved high completeness in The Gambia and Kenya (>85% data capture); Mozambique ambient capture was lower due to site-level connectivity constraints. Ambient monitoring periods were included only when ≥75% of expected observations were available; periods not meeting this threshold were excluded from primary analyses. Inter-sensor agreement was robust (R² > 0.72 pre-deployment; >0.75 in-country). Ambient monitoring characterised seasonal background variability and enabled evaluation of ambient-personal concordance under contrasting climatic regimes. Integration of personal and ambient datasets supported microenvironmental partitioning and climate-contextual interpretation of exposure patterns.Conclusion
This integrated monitoring framework extends the operational and methodological capacity for high-resolution exposure assessment through the generation of high-resolution, climate-structured exposure data within pregnancy cohorts in under-monitored African settings, advancing equitable exposure science and strengthening climate-informed maternal and newborn health research.Significance statement
This study establishes an adaptable, climate-structured exposure measurement architecture that reduces exposure misclassification and enables more precise exposure-response inference in maternal health research conducted in under-monitored environments.
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BibTeX
@article{makacha2026integrated,
title = {{An integrated climate-structured personal and ambient air pollution monitoring framework embedded within a pregnancy and postpartum cohort in Sub-Saharan Africa.}},
author = {Liberty Makacha and Jovito Nune and P Tatenda Makanga and Cathryn Tonne and Marie-Laure Volvert and Hawanatu Jah and Yahaya Idris and Esperança Sevene and Moses Mukhanya and Angela Koech and Onesmus Wanje and Anifa Valá and Hannah Blencowe and Umberto d'Alessandro and Marleen Temmerman and Anna Roca and Jeffrey N Bone and Laura A Magee and Peter von Dadelszen and Ben Barratt and PRECISE and PRECISE-DYAD Networks},
journal = {Frontiers in global women's health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fgwh.2026.1849628},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42898888},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - An integrated climate-structured personal and ambient air pollution monitoring framework embedded within a pregnancy and postpartum cohort in Sub-Saharan Africa.
AU - Liberty Makacha
AU - Jovito Nune
AU - P Tatenda Makanga
AU - Cathryn Tonne
AU - Marie-Laure Volvert
AU - Hawanatu Jah
AU - Yahaya Idris
AU - Esperança Sevene
AU - Moses Mukhanya
AU - Angela Koech
AU - Onesmus Wanje
AU - Anifa Valá
AU - Hannah Blencowe
AU - Umberto d'Alessandro
AU - Marleen Temmerman
AU - Anna Roca
AU - Jeffrey N Bone
AU - Laura A Magee
AU - Peter von Dadelszen
AU - Ben Barratt
AU - PRECISE and PRECISE-DYAD Networks
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
JO - Frontiers in global women's health
DO - 10.3389/fgwh.2026.1849628
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42898888
AB - Background In sub-Saharan Africa, climatic variability intersects with structural inequities-biomass reliance, informal livelihoods, rapid urbanisation, and sparse regulatory monitoring-to generate highly heterogeneous air pollution exposures during pregnancy. Maternal exposure assessment in the region remains dominated by coarse ambient estimates, limiting understanding of how climate and microenvironment jointly shape actual personal exposure through their influence on pollutant generation, dispersion, and proximity to emission sources.Objective To develop and implement an adaptable, climate-structured personal and ambient PM₂.₅ monitoring framework embedded within the PRECISE pregnancy cohort across The Gambia, Kenya, and Mozambique.Methods A purposively sampled subset of 343 pregnant or postpartum women (The Gambia n = 160; Kenya n = 105; Mozambique n = 78) completed two 5-day deployments (with usable data) of wearable multi-parameter monitors in opposing dry and wet seasons. Devices recorded minute-resolved PM₂.₅, temperature, humidity, and mobility (GPS/accelerometry). Fixed-site monitors were installed at six health facilities to characterise background exposure and seasonal dynamics. Calibration combined repeated pre-deployment co-location with reference instrumentation and in-country inter-sensor harmonisation using Deming regression. Quality assurance incorporated a ≥75% ambient air pollution data completeness threshold, encrypted transfer, geolocation validation, and cross-site reproducibility checks. Meteorological data (NASA POWER/MERRA-2) were integrated to contextualise climatic drivers.Results The protocol generated 3,190 person-days of personal exposure data together with 328 unique days of continuous ambient data. Ambient datasets achieved high completeness in The Gambia and Kenya (>85% data capture); Mozambique ambient capture was lower due to site-level connectivity constraints. Ambient monitoring periods were included only when ≥75% of expected observations were available; periods not meeting this threshold were excluded from primary analyses. Inter-sensor agreement was robust (R² > 0.72 pre-deployment; >0.75 in-country). Ambient monitoring characterised seasonal background variability and enabled evaluation of ambient-personal concordance under contrasting climatic regimes. Integration of personal and ambient datasets supported microenvironmental partitioning and climate-contextual interpretation of exposure patterns.Conclusion This integrated monitoring framework extends the operational and methodological capacity for high-resolution exposure assessment through the generation of high-resolution, climate-structured exposure data within pregnancy cohorts in under-monitored African settings, advancing equitable exposure science and strengthening climate-informed maternal and newborn health research.Significance statement This study establishes an adaptable, climate-structured exposure measurement architecture that reduces exposure misclassification and enables more precise exposure-response inference in maternal health research conducted in under-monitored environments.
SN - 2673-5059
ER -