York Cycle Campaign was delighted to host two fascinating speakers who, in very different ways, are thinking about cycling and health. 

Greener Practice Network

Rumina Onac is a York-based GP, and part of the Greener Practice network, who believes that the environment should be a lens through which all health care provision is viewed. She is a GP climate crisis advocate – who encourages her fellow GPs to consider the climate crisis in their work, whether that is talking to colleagues or patients about the situation, or considering how they can make their work more environmentally friendly. 

Rumina talked about some of the specific initiatives that she is promoting to make GP practices more sustainable. This includes swapping inhalers, finding reusable alternatives to non-reusable testing equipment, encouraging patients to dispose of unwanted drugs correctly, and organising an NHS equipment amnesty.  

Rumina is also a keen advocate of social prescribing, that is treating patients holistically and encouraging them to make lifestyle changes to address their health issues alongside, or as an alternative to, pharmaceuticals or surgical procedures. Rumina noted that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic – with 60% of the adult population and 35% of year 6 children being overweight or obese – but that encouraging walking and cycling may help to address this, as well as being good for the planet. Like YCC, Rumina agrees that we need to make it easy for people to do the right thing – for example by ensuring that there is safe and accessible walking and cycle infrastructure.   

York Air Map

Clare Nattress is an artist, researcher and educator, currently undertaking a PhD. Clare is a keen cyclist who first became interested in cycling and air pollution when traveling around the world with her bike and sampling both the best and worst in terms of air quality. Back in York, Clare started to experiment with sensors that can be fitted to a bike and used to measure air pollution when cycling. This has led to an ongoing arts-science collaboration with Dr David Bryant from Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratory at the University of York.

Claire and David have led York Air Map, a recent citizen science project in which they asked 12 regular cycle commuters to travel with low-cost sensors. This approach has the advantage of sampling the pollution that cyclists encounter, rather than the fixed pollution-monitoring stations which measure above the traffic level. This project led to the production of York’s first ‘air map’ which shows the levels of five air pollutants (NO₂, VOCs, and three sizes of particulate).  

The project showed that York had poor air quality in terms of NO₂ but was performing less badly in terms of particulates. There is no cause for complacency however, given what we now know about the dangers of all forms of air pollution, for our short term and long term health. Claire stressed that this should not discourage us from cycling, as it’s worth remembering that the levels of pollution are always worse when you are in a car! 

Clare is about to commence a further citizen science project,undertaking seasonal pollution sampling in York and is looking for 16 volunteers.