5 minute GAP - Why would a doctor cycle across the country for air pollution?
Dr Bethan Davies, a stroke consultant at University Hospitals Sussex, speaks to Dr Malcolm White about why she is so passionate about air quality, its relevance in health care, and how that led her to cycling 445km from Brighton to Liverpool, raising money for Global Action Plan and charity Different Strokes along the way.
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If you prefer to read rather than watch, the transcription is here:
Malcolm: What got you started, you know, sort of being interested in air quality as an area to sort of campaign on or work towards?
Bethan: Yeah. So I mean, I'm interested in the wider kind of environmental impact of health care delivery. But also vice versa, how, you know, a healthy lifestyle and a healthy environment improves our health, so, you know, the wider climate crisis and how we're contributing to that in health care and also how it's affecting our health. And air pollution is although obviously it's not the same as climate change, the root causes are the same. So I kind of consider it really, you know, as part of the the overall issues with our kind of, you know, relationship with the environment and the natural world.
So, in the work that I do within the hospital on green issues and within my professional organisation on green issues and air pollution. Sort of, it all kind of really links in, particularly in relation to stroke care and stroke incidents as well.
Malcolm: Yeah. And that sounds like a lot of conversations that I've been having over the last year or so while I've been at GAP as well. In terms of the links between what health care does, the pollution that that generates, as well as how, you know, how how we can decrease that, but also give people advice on how to have behaviour changes which might actually improve their health long term.
Bethan: Yeah, exactly. And I think that and kind of we're very used to seeing air pollution discussed in the context of child health and respiratory health. But actually, I think it's really less well known about the impacts on, you know, wider health, cardiovascular health. And also we've got background in geriatric medicine as well. You know, the fact that older people are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of air pollution. And I just don’t think that that's well recognised and therefore not well addressed at the moment.
Malcolm: Yeah, and I guess what I commonly come up against as well is that people obviously make the connection between respiratory health and air pollution. But it's actually the cardiovasculars, so heart issues and stroke issues and things like that, which actually cause a lot of the sort of mortality, as you know, from from the air pollution. So yeah, it's great that you're making strides really in that direction essentially.
And yeah, just coming on to what you did recently, you had this amazing cycle from Brighton all the way to Liverpool, wasn't it? And, and that was in November?
Bethan: Yeah, that's right. So, I’m the sustainability lead at our, the kind of professional body for stroke medicine, which is the British and Irish Association of Stroke Physicians and the National Stroke Conference, the UK Stroke Forum, was taking place in in Liverpool this year. So as, sort of in my role as Sustainablility Lead and to kind of highlight the issues around air pollution, I decided to cycle to the conference and kind of really use it as a way to get people talking about the effects of air pollution, but also to think about, you know, how we travel in our day to day lives, the benefits of active transport and then how well that links in with our professional lives as well. And what we're trying to do with kind of wider public health and stroke prevention.
Malcolm: Yeah. And it really feels like a lot of the solutions are the same in some senses for like climate and air pollution and general health and fitness. That can, you know, active travel really ties a lot of those together. So it was a really powerful message to send as well.
And how long did that take you? You know, must have been a few days at least?
Bethan: Yeah, no, so I did it over four days. And yeah, I kind of naively took Google Maps at face value in terms of the number of hours it was going to take me each day, which, yeah, I will know not to do that next time because it essentially took quite a lot longer by the time I navigated the routes, dealt with punctures. Yeah, dealt with kind of being on my own in very muddy conditions and things. But I mean, I did manage to do it in four days, but it did feel like it was quite, it was quite a... quite a trial.
I did reflect actually as well, you know, because I was...part of doing it was to highlight the importance of active transport. You know, as you know, for prevention of chronic health conditions, but also for, you know, mental wellbeing. But and I, you know, I think that there's a lot to be said as well about the cycling infrastructure and how well that's set up in this country. And actually, I was I was pleasantly surprised at the number of off road cycle paths and things that were available. And, you know, I think that’s really important that we include cycling infrastructure in our plans to reduce air pollution.
Malcolm: Yeah.