Last week we launched a report called "Does exercising in Jakarta's air pollution impact our health?" which includes a deep-dive into the air quality in Jabodetabek from 4-9AM when most people exercise.

Here's some of the things we found

Overall, The cost of air pollution in Jakarta is large, but what's more concerning is a general lack of data on health impact. The last available data was from 2010, nearly 10 years ago.

This posed a challenge for us - how do we correlate the air quality with health risk?

The University of Cambridge released a report in 2016 which concluded that long-term exposure to PM2.5 poses a health risk to people exposed to very high concentrations of air pollution.

The team developed a simple scale to help mitigate health risks...

The scale was simple:

PM2.5 > 100 ug/m3
After 90 minutes, health risks of air pollution outweigh benefits of exercise

PM2.5 > 165 ug/m3
After 30 minutes, health risks of air pollution outweigh benefits of exercise

What did that mean for 4-9AM in Jakarta?

Here's the data

In August 2020, between the hours of 4 and 9AM, the air quality on average frequently exceeded the 100 ug/m3 limit - meaning that the recommended time to exercise would be below 90 minutes.

Some places had averages above >165 ug/m3!!!

There was significant variance across the month from city to city, and by time of the month.

Note - the data below shows the average PM2.5 level for the entire block of time between 4-9AM.

Maximum hourly readings are higher.

So when is air quality actually good?

We took a look at the average hourly readings from the entire month, and something surprising emerged (at least for us non-atmospheric scientists).

The best air quality is during the day - which is a bit shocking when you previously thought that day = cars = bad.

The report is filled with a lot more details including:

- Best day of the week
- Detailed air quality by kecamatan (district) in each of the cities
- Risk index created based on occurrence of air pollution that is above PM2.5 100 ug/m3

So if you love exercising in Jabodetabek in the morning, or just want to see more of the data, here are the links to the reports - dual-language for easy understanding!

Bahasa Indonesia - https://report.nafas.co.id/jakarta-olahraga
English - https://report.nafas.co.id/jakarta-exercise

There are a few safe steps you can take to exercise outdoors when air quality is bad.

It starts with checking your air quality.

@nafasjkt has over 50 sensors in Jabodetabek to tell you the current air quality.

You can download it here:

https://link.nafas.co.id/4w2G/exercisePJ 

The most recent release of the app includes features made for people who like to exercise, but that's for another thread :)