From smoke to scents

IT MIGHT be easy to think that humanity’s focus on air quality is a fairly recent phenomenon, but the fact is that as long as humans have been using fires, there has also been a collective awareness regarding adverse health effects caused by smoke, odour and the lack of oxygen. The first publications related to air quality and its health impact were published as far back as 400 BC. While our air quality has worsened, due to escalating population densities in cities, our focus on collecting air quality data and analysing their correlation to various ailments has increased, albeit a few decades behind. With relation to the first historic landmark, as discussed above, almost 2,500 years ago, we can conclude that we have spent less than 10% of our documented air quality history trying to map the relationship between what we breathe and how we feel.