Currently submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 16, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 17, 2026 - Jun 12, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
AlertAr Saúde: System Description of an Online Municipal-Level Air Pollution Forecasting Platform for Public Health Surveillance in Brazil
ABSTRACT
Background:
Air pollution is a major environmental risk to human health, yet access to timely and territorially useful air quality information remains uneven in Brazil. The national monitoring network is concentrated in a limited number of metropolitan areas, while many municipalities lack continuous observational data. This constrains the routine use of air pollution information in environmental public health surveillance.
Objective:
The objective of this paper was to describe AlertAr Saúde, an open online system that provides municipal-level air pollution forecasts and historical estimates for all municipalities in Brazil to support public health surveillance, risk communication, and environmental health analysis.
Methods:
AlertAr Saúde integrates operational forecast products and global reanalysis products from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Gridded atmospheric fields for PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, and CO, as well as selected meteorological variables, are acquired automatically, standardized, and spatially aggregated to Brazilian municipalities by means of area-weighted zonal statistics based on official municipal boundaries. The outputs are disseminated through a web platform implemented in R/Shiny that provides interactive maps, municipal time series, and data downloads. The evaluation strategy summarized in this paper is based on published CAMS validation reports, with emphasis on aerosol validation relevant to particulate matter-related outputs.
Results:
The system provides daily updated municipal-level forecasts with a 120-hour horizon and a historical daily municipal database beginning in January 2003. The platform is publicly accessible without authentication and allows users to explore maps, inspect municipal time series, and download the displayed data. By translating global atmospheric products into administrative units aligned with the Brazilian Unified Health System, AlertAr Saúde reduces territorial barriers to the use of air quality information. Published CAMS validation reports indicate that the underlying atmospheric service reproduces major spatial and temporal aerosol patterns at regional and global scales, supporting its use as an indicative input for surveillance and early warning rather than as a substitute for local reference monitoring.
Conclusions:
AlertAr Saúde demonstrates how atmospheric modeling, spatial aggregation, and web dissemination can be combined into a public health-oriented environmental intelligence tool in Brazil. The system broadens access to air pollution information in underserved territories and provides a practical foundation for surveillance, risk communication, research, and future alerting applications.
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