Ramírez, O. (2015) Identification of Environmental Problems in Colombia from the Social Perception of University Students Located in Several Places of the Country. Revista Internacional de Contaminación Ambiental, 31, 293-310. (In Spanish)

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: How Do People Understand Urban Air Pollution? Exploring Citizens’ Perception on Air Quality, Its Causes and Impacts in Colombian Cities

  AUTHORS: Omar Ramírez, Ivan Mura, Juan Felipe Franco

  KEYWORDS: Public Perception, Citizen Participation, Air Quality, Air Pollution, Colombia

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Air Pollution, Vol.6 No.1, March 14, 2017

  ABSTRACT: Similarly to other Latin American countries, urban air quality is a major concern in Colombia. The purpose of the present study was to explore citizens’ perception on local air pollution, its causes and impacts. A questionnaire was individually applied to a sample of 994 participants. Relationships between demographic features and the perception on air quality were analyzed using a logistic regression, its odds ratio (OR), and a Chi-square test. Eighty percent of the respondents perceive their local air quality as either bad or fair, 65% recognize particulate matter as the main local air pollutant, and 90% recognize negative impacts on people’s health as the main consequence of air pollution. In contrast to other studies where age and economic status are variables highly related with public perception on the level of atmospheric pollution, in this study only the size of the cities has a statistically significant relationship with the perception on local air quality regarding the level of pollution(OR ≥ 1, confidence intervals > 1 and p-values