According to an Inserm study published on January 18, 2021, pollution is more harmful to cyclists and pedestrians than to motorists.
A number of studies in recent years have clearly stated that motorists are more exposed to air pollution than users of outdoor transport, including cyclists.
However, these studies only recorded pollutants captured in a static position at the respiratory tract, without analyzing the impact of physical effort on their inhalation. However, as soon as a person performs a physical activity, such as cycling or walking, their ventilation increases, which naturally increases the quantity of pollutants inhaled. The faster and harder we breathe, the more fine particles we breathe. So if the concentration is higher in a car or in a metro, the quantity of pollutants actually breathed is therefore much higher when cycling or walking.
A team of scientists supervised by Basile Chaix, research director at Inserm, within the Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health (Inserm/Sorbonne University), therefore looked at the impact of these parameters on exposure to soot carbon, an air pollutant produced by road traffic, among 283 participants for 6 days each. By taking into account the minute ventilation of each person in each travel segment (estimated using an accelerometer measuring physical activity), the dose of soot carbon inhaled by the participants during each trip was thus able to be quantified.
The idea is therefore not to ban or limit the practice of cycling or walking but to warn once again of the urgent need to decarbonize cities by providing more space for soft mobility and reducing fine particles emissions.
How to protect cyclists from air pollution?
In the meantime, wearing an anti-pollution mask like Frogmask remains a useful gesture when cycling in order to protect your respiratory tract from airborne dust. Frogmask's FFP2/N95 filters filter a minimum àf 94% of airborn particles down to 0.4µm. Its unique attachment system behind the neck and ears makes it very comfortable to wear even with a helmet and for several hours a day.
