Students concerned about air quality

Results from a student-conducted air quality survey conducted in February are in and will be submitted to the Logan City Council by Monday.

The survey, conducted by Courtney Flint’s Sociology 4620 class, reached 642 people, 547 of whom are undergraduate students.

“The survey indicates that there’s a real opportunity to provide more information and clearer information on what’s going on related to air quality,” Flint said. “There are things people can do. They can change their mode of transportation, idle less if they drive, park the car and walk into a place instead of using the drive-through or work to make sure their car is running well.”

Results indicate that as many as 96 percent of students would be at least somewhat willing to alter their behavior to help with air quality. However, many commented that they don’t know what it is that they should be doing.

“The impression that we got from students is that they would really welcome more information and more activism,” Flint said. “There were a lot of comments about that they’d like readily-available information about air quality on the USU website or to get an email if there’s bad air.”

Forty-seven percent of undergraduate respondents believed the air quality was negatively affecting their health or the health of someone in their household, including 41 percent who report respiratory problems. This data, Flint said, shows the relevance of the problem.

Despite the quantity of students that don’t know what can be done about air quality, most people agreed that the government should get involved. 83 percent of undergraduates believe that Logan City has the power to do something about air quality.

“That’s a strong mandate for doing something at the city level,” Flint said.

While Flint agrees that some responsibility should be given to local, state and federal governments, she also made the point that people should take action on an individual basis as well.

“There’s a combination of actions that individuals should take because we know that emissions from vehicles are a huge source of the air pollution issue, but that should probably be coupled with actions from the city,” she said.

Flint plans to repeat the study in 2016.

— levi.henrie@aggiemail.usu.edu