At the end of November I am cycling 445km from Brighton to Liverpool to attend the 2022 UK Stroke Forum. I’m doing this to raise awareness of the health impacts of air pollution and to promote ways of travelling that are better for our health and the planet.

https://twitter.com/bethanldavies21/status/1589872714134978560

Air pollution affects our health at every stage of our lives – as a mum, I am concerned about the impact on my kids’ lungs of breathing toxic levels of air pollution on their way to and from school each day; as a stroke doctor I am increasingly aware of the long-term health impacts of air pollution exposure including on the risk of developing stroke, dementia and many other diseases.

I’m not expecting the journey to be easy especially as it may well be cold, dark and rainy! But I hope it will get people thinking about how we can leave behind our cars, how we can make cycling and other forms of active transport a viable and better alternative and how exercise and active lifestyles are good both for our own physical and mental wellbeing but also for the planet.

I am raising money for two fantastic charities – Global Action Plan (an environmental charity which focuses on health and in particular air pollution); and Different Strokes (a UK charity which supports young stroke survivors including offering online exercise sessions). Links to donate are the 'team members' below - click on the top one for Global Action Plan and the bottom one for Different Strokes - ideally I would hope that any donations can be split equally between the two charities.

If you are attending the UK Stroke Forum and want to add your contribution to road-miles saved by travelling to Liverpool by active or public transport, visit the British and Irish Association of Stroke Physicians website at https://biasp.org/sustainability/

Thank you for visiting my webpage!

For more information about these issues check out: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-pollution-applying-all-our-health/air-pollution-applying-all-our-health https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj-2021-069688