Survey data regarding perceived air quality in Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa, United States before and during Covid-19 restrictions

Diego Maria Barbieri; Baowen Lou; Marco Passavanti; Cang Hui; Daniela Antunes Lessa; Brij Maharaj; Arunabha Banerjee; Fusong Wang; Kevin Chang; Bhaven Naik; Lei Yu; Zhuangzhuang Liu; Gaurav Sikka; Andrew Tucker; Ali Foroutan Mirhosseini; Sahra Naseri; Yaning Qiao; Akshay Gupta; Montasir Abbas; Kevin Fang; Navid Ghasemi; Prince Peprah; Shubham Goswami; Amir Hessami; Nithin Agarwal; Louisa Lam; Solomon Adomako

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.106169

Survey data regarding perceived air quality in Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa, United States before and during Covid-19 restrictions

Data Brief. 2020 Oct:32:106169. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106169. Epub 2020 Aug 13.

Authors

Diego Maria Barbieri¹, Baowen Lou², Marco Passavanti³, Cang Hui⁴, Daniela Antunes Lessa⁵, Brij Maharaj⁶, Arunabha Banerjee⁷, Fusong Wang⁸, Kevin Chang⁹, Bhaven Naik¹⁰, Lei Yu¹¹, Zhuangzhuang Liu¹², Gaurav Sikka¹³, Andrew Tucker¹⁴, Ali Foroutan Mirhosseini¹, Sahra Naseri¹⁵, Yaning Qiao¹⁶, Akshay Gupta¹⁷, Montasir Abbas¹⁸, Kevin Fang¹⁹, Navid Ghasemi²⁰, Prince Peprah²¹, Shubham Goswami²², Amir Hessami²³, Nithin Agarwal²⁴, Louisa Lam²⁵, Solomon Adomako²⁶

Affiliations

¹ Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Høgskoleringen 7A, Trondheim, 7491, Trøndelag, Norway.
² Chang'an University, School of Highway, Nan Er Huan Road (Mid-section), Xi'an, 710064, Shaanxi, China.
³ Italian Society of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT-Italy), Guastalla St. 2, Carpi 4012, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
⁴ Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Matieland, 7602, South Africa.
⁵ Federal University of Ouro Preto, Department of Civil Engineering. Rua Nove, Bauxita, Ouro Preto, 35400-000, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
⁶ University of KwaZulu-Natal, Department of Geography. Howard College City, Durban, 4000, KwaZulu, South Africa.
⁷ Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Department of Civil Engineering. IIT Guwahati, Guwahati, 781039, Assam, India.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology. Luoshi road 122, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China.
⁹ University of Idaho, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 875 Perimeter Drive, Mailstop 1022, Moscow, 83844, Idaho, United States.
¹⁰ Ohio University, Department of Civil Engineering/Russ College of Engineering & Technology. 28 W. Green Drive, Athens, 45701, Ohio, United States.
¹¹ Sun Yat-sen University, School of Civil Engineering. Xingang Xi Road 135, Guangzhou, 510275, Guangdong, China.
¹² Chang'an University, School of Highway. Nan Er Huan Road (Mid-section), Xi'an, 710064, Shaanxi, China.
¹³ Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Department of Geography. Darbhanga, 846004, Bihar, India.
¹⁴ University of Connecticut, Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center. 270 Middle Turnpike, Unit 5202 Longley Building, Storrs, 06269, Connecticut, United States.
¹⁵ Bam University of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine. Bam, 76615-336, Kerman, Iran.
¹⁶ China University of Mining and Technology, School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering. Daxue Road 1, Xuzhou, 22116, Jiangsu, China.
¹⁷ Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Department of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering Group, 321-A&B, Roorkee, 247667, Uttarakhand, India.
¹⁸ Virginia Tech, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 301-D3 Patton Hall, Blacksburg, 24061, Virginia, United States.
¹⁹ Sonoma State University, Department of Geography, Environment, and Planning, 1801 East Cotati Avenue, Rohnert Park, 94928, California, United States.
²⁰ University of Bologna, Department of Civil Chemical Environmental and Materials Engineering. Viale del Risorgimento, 2, Bologna, 40136, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
²¹ University of New South Wales, Department of Social Policy Research Centre, John Goodsell Building, Kensington, Sydney, 2052, New South Wales, Australia.
²² Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Department of Civil Engineering, C V Raman Avenue, Bangalore, 560012, Karnataka, India.
²³ Texas A&M University - Kingsville, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, 917 W. Ave B, Kingsville, 78363, Texas, United States.
²⁴ University of Florida, Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering, 2100 NE Waldo Rd., Sta 106, Gainesville, 32609, Florida, United States.
²⁵ Federation University Australia, School of Nursing and Healthcare Professions, 72-100 Clyde Rd, Berwick, 3806, Victoria, Australia.
²⁶ University of Agder, Department of Engineering and Science, Jon Lilletuns vei 9, Grimstad, 4879, Agder, Norway.

Abstract

The dataset deals with the air quality perceived by citizens before and during the enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions in ten countries around the world: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the United States. An online survey conveniently translated into Chinese, English, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese collected information regarding the perceived quality of air pollution according to a Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed between 11-05-2020 and 31-05-2020 and 9 394 respondents took part. Both the survey and the dataset (stored in a Microsoft Excel Worksheet) are available in a public repository. The collected data offer the people's subjective perspectives related to the objective improvement in air quality occurred during the COVID-19 restrictions. Furthermore, the dataset can be used for research studies involving the reduction in air pollution as experienced, to a different extent, by populations of all the ten countries.

Keywords: Air quality; COVID-19; Environmental pollution; Psychometric perception; Survey data.