Allegheny County launches air quality dashboard on website

A new air quality dashboard on the Allegheny County Health Department website will help users monitor air pollution in real time.

The new interactive site launched Wednesday. It takes information from the county Health Department’s air quality monitors and is intended to be more accessible for users, officials said.

Users can choose to look at real-time data or choose historical data. Data can also be sorted by type of pollutant and location of the monitors.

“We are very excited to have worked with CountyStat to develop a new and comprehensive tool so that the public can access the most recent air quality data and information,” said Health Department Director Karen Hacker. “Public interest in air quality is crucial to improving air quality in Allegheny County. We encourage residents to explore this dashboard and all of its features.”

The “today” tab of the dashboard shows the most recent 24 hours of data from all monitors across the county that measure three common pollutants: fine particulate matter, ozone, and sulfur dioxide.

The current Air Quality Index (AQI) from each monitor is also part of the dashboard and contains information on what the current AQI may have on a person’s health. The “over time” tab provides information on historical trends for data dating back to January 2016 for most monitors.