The Air Children in Almaty Breathe: Air Quality Near Schools and Kindergartens

Analytical Material for International Children’s Day

Prepared based on PM2.5 sensor data from the Almaty Air Initiative network and open sources.

Every morning, more than 422,000 children in Almaty go to school or kindergarten, while the number of students increases by 12,000–14,000 every year. Today, a child’s right to education is inseparable from the right to clean air. In reality, however, most schools and kindergartens are not equipped with air purifiers or filtered supply ventilation systems. As a result, a significant part of the educational process is forced to take place in conditions of high concentrations of harmful airborne particles, from which children are not protected either during classes indoors or during outdoor activities. 

Air pollution in Kazakhstan not only affects children’s well-being and health, but also lives. According to State of Global Air, in 2023 alone, air pollution was associated with the deaths of 265 newborns in the first 27 days of life, another 86 children under the age of five, and more than 20 children and adolescents aged 5 to 19.. More than 70% of all child deaths in the country linked to elevated concentrations of PM2.5 outdoors and indoors occur among newborns, at a stage when the body is most vulnerable to environmental exposureю

For reference: 

PM2.5 refers to tiny solid particles and liquid droplets in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, about 30 times thinner than a human hair. Because of their size, these particles are not trapped in the upper respiratory tract like ordinary dust. Instead, they penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream, and reach other organs, including the heart and brain. This is why the WHO identifies PM2.5 as one of the most dangerous components of urban air pollution and sets very strict guideline values for it: annual average concentration should not exceed 5 μg/m³, while the 24-hour average should not exceed 15 μg/m³. 

In Almaty, this indicator reached 31.2 μg/m³ in 2025, which is 6.3 times higher than the WHO guideline. During the winter months, which make up a large part of the school year, concentrations become even higher. For a child, this means regular exposure, both at home and at school, to concentrations directly associated with increased risks of asthma, impaired lung development, and cognitive consequences.

Unlike adults, whose bodies are more resilient to external factors, a growing child is highly sensitive to PM2.5 exposure. Even moderate exceedances of guideline levels can harm vital body systems, creating a dangerous cumulative effect during the period of their active development. 

For International Children’s Day, Almaty Air Initiative set out to show the real level of pollution children are exposed to during school hours and how safe the air is around schools and kindergartens.

As part of this study, data were analyzed near 1,008 kindergartens and 352 schools, including both public and private educational institutions in Almaty. 

What the analysis showed: number of findings should be reduced to five Focus should be made specifically on children

• Almost all schools and kindergartens in the city were regularly exposed to PM2.5 levels exceeding WHO guidelines during the heating season.
• On 48.4% of school days, or 76 out of 157 school days, PM2.5 concentrations near Almaty schools and kindergartens exceeded Kazakhstan’s 24-hour permissible limit of 35 μg/m³.
• In northern districts, 90% of school days during the heating season exceeded the WHO 24-hour guideline of 15 μg/m³.
• The most polluted institutions are located in the Alatau district, where average concentrations during the school year exceeded 70 μg/m³, which is 16 times higher than the WHO guideline. 
• The gap between the most and least polluted educational institutions reached 3.5 times.

Why are Children Most Vulnerable to Air Pollution?

It is important to keep in mind that a child’s body is a complex system undergoing intensive growth and development. Due to anatomical, physiological, and behavioral characteristics, children experience a much stronger toxic burden, even when they are in the same room or on the same street as adults. Several factors contribute to this. 

Physiological risk factors

Children’s physiological vulnerability to PM2.5 is fundamentally different from that of adults.

• Children breathe much more frequently than adults. While an adult at rest takes 12–16 breaths per minute, a primary school child takes around 20–25 breaths, and a preschool child up to 30. Because of faster metabolism and the high oxygen demand of a growing body, children inhale 2–3 times more air per unit of body weight than adults.
• Children’s lungs are not yet fully developed. At birth, the lungs contain only 20–50% of the adult number of alveoli, the tiny air sacs responsible for gas exchange. Active lung tissue growth continues until adolescence, around the age of 12–14. Research has shown that systematic exposure to PM2.5 during this period slows alveolar development and irreversibly reduces maximum lung capacity. This deficit persists into adulthood, artificially limiting a person’s physical potential and increasing the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, later in life.
• Children’s brain defense mechanisms are also not fully formed. The blood-brain barrier, which limits the penetration of toxins into the central nervous system, remains more permeable in early childhood than in adults. This gives fine particles, especially those containing lead, manganese, and combustion products from liquid fuels, more direct access to brain tissue. Medical studies link PM2.5 exposure to neuroinflammation, disruption of neural connection formation, and impaired cognitive development.
• Children also spend more time outdoors through walks, breaks, physical education classes, and commuting to school, often during hours when pollution levels are high.
  By contrast, infants spend most of the day indoors, but they are among the first to be affected by indoor air pollution if homes are heated with coal or wood. 

The combination of these factors and elevated concentrations of harmful substances in the air contributes to various childhood diseases.

Prenatal Consequences: Air Pollution Risks Before Birth

Exposure to PM2.5 begins long before a child first goes to school, starting during prenatal development.

Modern research in public health and environmental science has shown that the placenta is not an absolute filter. Black carbon nanoparticles, or soot, and associated heavy metals can pass from the mother’s lungs into the bloodstream, trigger systemic inflammation, cross the placental barrier directly, and accumulate in fetal tissues and umbilical cord blood. 

According to the WHO, chronic maternal exposure to PM2.5 during pregnancy leads to intrauterine growth restriction, impaired placental development, and, as a result, premature birth and extremely low birth weight.

According to State of Global Air, air pollution is linked to approximately 15.6% of all low birth weight cases worldwide. Such children are later significantly more vulnerable to respiratory infections, chronic inflammation, and impaired development of the lungs and nervous system.

For Almaty, this issue is especially sensitive because during the heating season, pregnant women in the city’s northern districts are exposed for months to PM2.5 levels of 50–80 μg/m³, concentrations that the WHO classifies as hazardous to health.

Respiratory Consequences: Development of Childhood Asthma

Constant irritation of immature airways by fine particulate matter, PM2.5, provokes chronic swelling and hidden inflammatory processes. Children who are systematically exposed to PM2.5 face a higher risk of developing asthma, chronic bronchitis, and reduced lung function. 

Children’s anatomical vulnerability is clearly reflected in official statistics from the RoK Ministry of Health and the Bureau of National Statistics. Respiratory diseases are firmly the leading cause of morbidity among children under 14. For every 100,000 children in Kazakhstan, there are 47,800 medical visits related to respiratory diseases, which is 5.5 times more than visits for digestive system diseases, at 8,800.

In the educational process, this medical statistic turns into social losses: studies show a direct link between daily smog peaks and a simultaneous increase in school absences due to illness.

Cognitive Consequences:

One of the most significant studies of recent years was a meta-analysis published in November 2024, which quantified the impact of PM2.5 on children’s cognitive abilities. The researchers analyzed dozens of international studies and concluded that each additional 1 μg/m³ of PM2.5 correlates with a decrease in a child’s overall IQ of approximately 0.27 points, with p < 0.001. The strongest effect was observed for nonverbal IQ, an indicator associated with attention, information processing, and learning ability: the decrease was around 0.39 points for each additional 1 μg/m³ of PM2.5.

The authors emphasize that the effect is observed even at concentrations below the US EPA standard of 9 μg/m³. This means that, in practice, there may be no safe threshold for cognitive consequences in children.

If these coefficients are applied to Almaty’s data, with annual average PM2.5 of approximately 31 μg/m³, a child experiences chronic exposure throughout childhood that may correspond to a loss of 7–8 IQ points. 

Important disclaimer: this is a population-level estimate of a likely average effect across a group, not an individual forecast for a specific child. Actual outcomes depend on genetic factors, nutrition, duration of exposure, and other conditions. Nevertheless, at the scale of a major city, such a shift means a change in the cognitive profile of entire generations.

Childhood Under Different Skies: Districts of Almaty

As previous studies have shown, air pollution in Almaty is distributed extremely unevenly. Children in different parts of the city grow up under fundamentally different atmospheric conditions. They receive different levels of chronic exposure affecting their lungs and brains, while attending institutions that belong to the same urban education system.

To assess the real scale of this inequality, we combined air pollution data with the locations of 365 schools and 1,008 kindergartens in Almaty. For each institution, the average PM2.5 concentration was calculated based on the nearest monitoring stations. All institutions were then plotted on an interactive map with the option to view data for each month of the school year.

Link to the interactive map:

The map shows that the highest burden falls on the northern, northwestern, and northeastern districts of the city, where several risk factors overlap: a significant share of private housing with coal heating, proximity to industrial zones and combined heat and power plants, and unfavorable air dispersion conditions.

A particularly strong contrast is observed between the southern and northern parts of the city. Southern districts of Almaty are partly ventilated by air flows from the mountains, while northern areas retain smog for longer during the heating season due to temperature inversions, weak atmospheric ventilation, and the city’s terrain. 

October 2025 – April 2026, PM2.5 data from Almaty Air Initiative

On average, over the entire analysis period, the highest PM2.5 concentrations were recorded in Turksib District at 59.3 μg/m³, Alatau District at 56.3 μg/m³, and Zhetysu District at 52.7 μg/m³. This is almost 11 times higher than the WHO recommended annual guideline of 5 μg/m³ and significantly above Kazakhstan’s 24-hour permissible limit of 35 μg/m³.

Together, Turksib and Alatau districts accounted for 65.6% of all dangerous hours recorded across the city during the season: 14,909 out of 22,730 hours with PM2.5 above 150 μg/m³. During these hours, concentrations in the air exceeded Kazakhstan’s average daily permissible limit by more than four times. This is a level at which medical organizations recommend completely stopping outdoor activity for all age groups. For children going outside during school breaks or attending physical education classes, this means direct exposure to extremely polluted air.

In Turksib District, 6 out of the 7 months analyzed showed average monthly values above Kazakhstan’s average daily permissible limit. The only exception was April. The same pattern was observed in Alatau and Zhetysu districts.

The gap between Turksib and Bostandyk districts was 28.6 μg/m³ in average seasonal PM2.5 levels, representing an almost twofold difference in chronic exposure: 59.3 versus 31.1 μg/m³. In the peak month of November, this gap reached 54.5 μg/m³, or 2.8 times.

Even in the city’s relatively “cleanest” districts, the situation remains far from safe. In Bostandyk District, 67.1% of all hours during the heating season exceeded the WHO PM2.5 guideline, while 35.4% of days were above Kazakhstan’s permissible limit. This means that in Almaty there are effectively no districts where children consistently breathed air meeting international health protection guidelines during the school season. 

If we look only at school days, excluding weekends, public holidays, and school vacations, the picture changes very little. Over the entire observation period, exceedances of average daily permissible limit of 35 μg/m³ were recorded on average on 51.8% of days, or 110 out of 212 days, and during the school period – 48.4% of school days, or 76 out of 157. In other words, even after excluding weekends and vacations, children spent almost every second school day in conditions where air pollution exceeded the sanitary standard. 

Monthly pollution timeline

Large part of the school season in Almaty coincides with the months of peak pollution.

Average Monthly PM2.5 Concentrations, Almaty districts

October 2025: beginning of the heating season Average monthly concentration was 36.3 μg/m³. Already in the first month, northern districts exceeded Kazakhstan’s permissible limit: Turksib District reached 46.9 μg/m³, while Alatau District reached 47.4 μg/m³. Southern districts remained below the Kazakhstani limit for the time being, but were already three times above the WHO guideline. 

November 2025: the sharpest increase of the season The average monthly concentration was 54.4 μg/m³. In just one month, Turksib District rose from 46.9 to 85.4 μg/m³, an increase of 82%. Alatau District – from 47.4 to 76.7 μg/m³, (+62%). This is the month when many heating stoves in the private sector are switched on at the same time, while the first temperature inversions trap smog close to the ground. From November onward, almost all districts of the city exceeded Kazakhstan’s 24-hour permissible limit. Bostandyk District was the only district where the November value, 30.9 μg/m³, remained below the permissible limit.

December 2025: the seasonal peak for most districts The average monthly concentration was 62.4 μg/m³. Concentrations corresponding to the AQI category “Unhealthy” were recorded in six out of eight districts: Turksib District – 85.8 μg/m³, Alatau District – 77.1 μg/m³, Zhetysu District – 75.1 μg/m³, Almaly and Nauryzbai districts ranged between 55 and 67 μg/m³. Medeu and Bostandyk districts – from 41 to 46 μg/m³. 

January 2026: a plateau of high pollution The average monthly concentration was 57.7 μg/m³. Three northern districts, Turksib (73.6 μg/m³), Alatau (71.4 μg/m³), and Zhetysu at (70.3 μg/m³), remained above 70 μg/m³. This was the first month after the winter holidays. Children returned to school not to improved conditions, but to a stable and high concentration of smog. Medeu and Bostandyk districts reached their seasonal peaks precisely in January, at 46.3 and 43.8 μg/m³ respectively. 

February 2026: the first noticeable decline In northern districts – 30%, 40.2 μg/m³ vs 57.7 μg/m³ However, Turksib District (53.6 μg/m³) and Alatau District at (51.5 μg/m³) still remained in the red zone. 

March 2026: continued decline The average monthly concentration was 35.4 μg/m³. Turksib – 44.4 μg/m³, still above Kazakhstan’s permissible limit. Most southern districts dropped below the permissible limit for the first time since October. The gap between the north and south of the city began to narrow.

April 2026: the only relatively safe month The average monthly concentration was 16.0 μg/m³. For the first time, all city districts were below Kazakhstan’s permissible limit. Southern and central districts, (Bostandyk, Medeu, Almaly, and Auezov), dropped below the WHO 24-hour guideline (15 μg/m³). For northern districts, April still meant 17-21 μg/m³, which is above the WHO 24-hour guideline, but for the first time in six months there were no critical values. The school year, however, continues until the end of May.

As a result, 5 out of the 7 months of the heating season showed average PM2.5 concentrations above Kazakhstan’s permissible limit or very close to it. April was the only “safe” month. 

In Almaty, there are effectively no districts where children consistently breathed air meeting health protection standards during the school season. 

For a child, this means a fundamentally different daily dose of pollution throughout the school year: from the road to school and morning walks in kindergarten to outdoor sports and the journey home in the evening.

This means that the most toxic burden is concentrated unevenly and primarily affects children who live and study in the northern districts of Almaty. In effect, a child’s district of residence determines not only the quality of their urban environment, but also the level of daily exposure to polluted air.

Which Schools and Kindergartens are the Most Vulnerable?

An institution-level analysis refines the broader district-level picture and adds an important nuance: while seasonal averages usually identify the Turksib district as the most polluted, the ranking of individual institutions tells a different story. Alatau district predominantly occupies the top positions, both for schools and kindergartens.

AIR QUALITY NEAR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ALMATY
Average daily PM2.5 · October 2025 — April 2026

It is important to emphasize that these data do not reflect the quality of management or resources at any specific institution. Being in the anti-ranking does not mean that a school is poorly managed or under-resourced, it simply means that it is located in an area where the air is, on average, more polluted.

Kindergartens

Among Almaty’s 1,008 kindergartens, the institutions located in the zone of maximum PM2.5 exposure are predominantly in Alatau district. The five institutions with the highest seasonal concentrations are all located in the same district.

Of the 20 kindergartens with the highest seasonal exposure, 12 are in Alatau district, 5 are in Turksib district, and 2 are in Zhetysu district. All 20 exceed the WHO guideline by 12 times or more and fall into the “Unhealthy” AQI category based on their seasonal average. 

For a three-year-old child attending Balausa kindergarten or Nursery-Kindergarten No. 1, where the concentration is 71.3 µg/m³, this means that every morning in the playground, every daytime walk, and every time spent outdoors takes place in air that the WHO classifies as harmful to health. Under the regulations, kindergartens are required to take children outside twice a day for a total of up to 2-3 hours. These hours are spent in air with 60-70 µg/m³ PM2.5 concentrations.

Schools

The picture is similar among Almaty’s 352 schools, and here again, Alatau district unexpectedly comes out on top. School No. 156 in Alatau district ranks first, with a concentration of 71.3 µg/m³, the same level as the top-ranking kindergartens.

Of the 20 schools with the highest seasonal exposure, 8 are in Alatau district, 7 are in Turksib district, 2 are in Zhetysu district, and one each is located in Almaly and Nauryzbay districts. 

It is notable that schools from Almaly and Nauryzbay districts also appear on the list. 

• Gymnasium No. 147 in Almaly district records an average of 64.6 µg/m³, which is 52% higher than the average daily value for its district during the analysis period, 42.6 µg/m³. The school is located near Almaty-2 railway station. We have previously written about the situation around the station: coal burning for heating railway carriages and the use of diesel create a constant pollution background that does not disappear on weekends or during school holidays. On the most polluted day of 2025, December 7, the average daily concentration near the station reached 207.5 µg/m³, with a maximum peak of 774 µg/m³, this is 4.8 times higher than RoK one-time maximum permissible concentration (160 µg/m³).
• QSI Almaty International School in Kalkaman shows 62.8 µg/m³ against a district average of 36.9 µg/m³, an excess of 70%. The school is surrounded by private housing and is located along a busy road, Abay Avenue.

This concentration of the most polluted educational institutions in the northern part of the city is not accidental. For some institutions in Alatau and Turksib districts, one of the key risk factors is their proximity to major transport arteries and logistics corridors, where emissions remain high almost throughout the day. In the northern districts, this is compounded by emissions from thermal power plants and heating sources in the private sector, both within the city and beyond its boundaries. As a result, even within the same district, PM2.5 concentrations can vary significantly depending on proximity to industrial sites, busy roads, or dense low-rise residential areas.

The gap between the city’s cleanest school, located in Medeu district, with an average daily concentration of 19.7 µg/m³ during the analysis period, and the most polluted school in Alatau district, with 71.3 µg/m³, is 50 µg/m³, or 3.5 times. The form of ownership, whether public or private, does not matter: in Turksib district, private kindergartens breathe the same air as public ones.

When And at What Time is the Air at Its Worst?

Daily trends

The daily PM2.5 cycle in Almaty shows a very pronounced difference between the city’s northern, central, and southern districts. These differences are especially important for understanding the hours when children are most exposed to polluted air.

Daily PM2.5 cycle in schools and kindergartens by district of Almaty

The sharpest contrast is observed between the northern districts, Turksib, Alatau, and Zhetysu, and the southern districts, Bostandyk and Medeu.

Even during the night and early morning hours, the northern part of the city is significantly more polluted. For example, around midnight, average seasonal PM2.5 concentrations in Turksib district exceed 80 µg/m³, while in Bostandyk district they are around 26 µg/m³. In other words, at night and in the early morning, the northern districts are approximately 2.5-3 times more polluted than the southern districts.

Morning: It is particularly important that this gap persists during the hours when children arrive at schools and kindergartens, roughly from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. During this time, concentrations in Turksib and Alatau districts remain around 40-46 µg/m³, while in the southern part of the city they fall to 19-22 µg/m³. In other words, in the morning, a child in northern Almaty is effectively breathing air with a PM2.5 concentration more than twice as high as that inhaled by a child in the southern districts.

This contrast is primarily linked to the city’s topography and air circulation patterns. At night, cold polluted air flows downhill and accumulates in the northern part of Almaty, where ventilation is significantly poorer. Under winter temperature inversion conditions, pollutants become “trapped” in the near-surface layer of air. This is why the northern part of the city retains high concentrations for longer after nighttime smog accumulation.

During the day, the picture changes. From around 11:00 to 16:00, concentrations in the northern districts decline noticeably, and differences between districts become smaller. During this period, the central and southern districts begin to show relatively higher values compared with the morning hours. For example, in Bostandyk district, concentrations may increase on average from 18-20 µg/m³ in the morning to 40-43 µg/m³ during the day, almost doubling. In Medeu district, values also rise noticeably, from 21 to 40 µg/m³. But in Turksib, Zhetysu, and Alatau districts, morning values of ~38-46 µg/m³ decrease to daytime levels of ~35-37 µg/m³.

This is linked to the intensification of daytime traffic, local emissions, and the dispersion and mixing of air, which carries pollutants between different parts of the city. During the day, the north gradually “unloads,” while central districts begin to experience a more pronounced impact from traffic flows and urban activity.

For children, this means that even if the southern districts appear relatively better in the morning, concentrations may rise significantly during daytime walks, physical education classes, and time spent outdoors.

Evening. However, the sharpest change occurs in the evening. After 17:00, northern Almaty begins to accumulate pollution very rapidly. In Turksib district, concentrations increased on average from 37 µg/m³ during the day to 91 µg/m³ in the evening, more than doubling within just a few hours. Alatau district shows an almost identical pattern. At the same time, the southern districts remain much more stable: evening values in Bostandyk district rise only to 32-40 µg/m³, while in Medeu district they reach roughly 40-43 µg/m³.

Thus, in the evening, the difference between the north and the south again reaches almost a threefold level.

This evening period is especially dangerous for children. It is the time when they return home from school, sports sections, and other activities. Children are exposed to polluted air while physically active, walking, waiting for transport, and spending time near roads. For a child’s body, such peaks are particularly harmful because high PM2.5 concentrations coincide with intensive breathing and a greater volume of inhaled air.

Pollution by Day of the Week

Analysis of PM2.5 distribution by day of the week shows that air pollution in Almaty has not only a seasonal and daily rhythm, but also a clear weekly cycle. Concentrations vary substantially from weekdays to weekends, with the most unfavorable situation observed on Sunday and Monday.

Average PM2.5 concentration by day of the week near schools and kindergartens in Almaty

Average PM2.5 concentrations near schools and kindergartens reach 56.4 µg/m³ on Sundays, the highest value of the week. By comparison, the average concentration on Wednesday is around 36.6 µg/m³. Thus, Sunday pollution levels are approximately 1.5 times higher than those in the middle of the week.

Even the lowest weekly values remain significantly above the WHO guideline (15 µg/m³). This means that children are exposed to chronic air pollution almost every day, regardless of the day of the week.

It is especially important that Sunday turns out to be the most polluted day despite the relative decrease in traffic load. This points to the dominant role of heating-related factors during the winter period. As a result, pollutants gradually accumulate in the near-surface air layer over the weekend.

That is why, on Monday, the city often enters the new week with an already high accumulated level of PM2.5.

This is particularly visible in the matrix showing pollution distribution by days of the week and months.

PM2.5 Pollution Matrix by Almaty Districts, Months and Days of the Week

The matrix shows that in winter, especially in November, December, and January, almost all Sundays are regularly marked in categories corresponding to “Unhealthy” and “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” air quality. In the northern districts of the city, such episodes are observed almost every week. This is especially evident in Turksib district, where the average Sunday in November reached the threshold of the “Hazardous” category: 128.7 µg/m³, which is 8.5 times higher than the WHO daily guideline and 25 times higher than the annual guideline.  

Monday becomes the next critical day, with 49 µg/m³, more than three times the WHO recommended level and around 40% higher than Kazakhstan’s maximum permissible concentration. After a polluted Sunday, children return to schools and kindergartens under conditions of already accumulated smog. At the same time, transport activity rises sharply on Monday morning, with more cars, public transport, and school-related trips. As a result, pollution does not have time to disperse. Instead, it intensifies.

It is precisely the combination of residual pollution after the weekend and the morning traffic peak that makes Monday one of the most unfavorable days for children’s health.

The regular, repeated nature of this exposure is particularly dangerous. The weekly cycle shows that children in Almaty face not isolated pollution episodes, but sustained chronic exposure that repeats week after week throughout the cold season.

Interestingly, in the middle of the week, especially on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, concentrations decrease somewhat. This is associated with more stable weather conditions and partial dispersion of accumulated pollution. However, even on these days, the air near educational institutions remains substantially polluted.

Saturday again shows an increase in PM2.5 concentrations. This may be linked both to changes in traffic flows and to the gradual accumulation of pollutants ahead of the Sunday peak.

Cigarette Equivalent Over the School Period

To convey the scale of children’s chronic exposure to polluted air, we use an international method that converts PM2.5 concentrations into a cigarette equivalent. This is not a literal comparison between smoking and urban air pollution. Rather, it is a tool that translates abstract µg/m³ values into a more understandable image of chronic exposure.

For reference: This approach is based on estimates by the Berkeley Earth research group and epidemiological data on the health effects of PM2.5. In a simplified interpretation, an average daily PM2.5 concentration of around 22 µg/m³ can be considered comparable, in terms of health risk, to smoking one cigarette per day. (Source)

Importantly, this methodology is designed for an average adult. The baseline values below therefore apply specifically to adults. For children, they should be treated only as a lower-bound estimate.

The calculation included only actual school days: Monday to Saturday, excluding Sundays, public holidays, and school holidays. From October 2025 to April 2026, there were 157 such days. The calculation is based on the average daily PM2.5 concentration in each district over the entire analysis period. 

Harm equivalent in cigarettes smoked for an adult near schools and kindergartens in Almaty

The result shows not only a high overall level of exposure, but also a sharp geographic inequality. A child attending a school or kindergarten in Turksib district accumulates, over one heating season, a dose equivalent to 423 cigarettes, or 2.7 cigarettes per day for an adult. In Bostandyk district, the equivalent is 222 cigarettes, or 1.4 cigarettes per day. 

During peak months in Turksib district, the equivalent rises even higher: in December, when the average daily PM2.5 concentration reached 85.8 µg/m³, the adult equivalent was already 3.9 cigarettes per day. In January, with a monthly average of 73.6 µg/m³, the equivalent was 3.3 cigarettes per day.

At the same time, it is important to consider that children do not simply breathe the same air as adults. Proportionally, they receive a higher dose. Because of their higher breathing rate and lower body weight, children inhale 2-3 times more air per kilogram of body weight than adults in the same environment. (WHO and UNICEF). This means that the actual physiological dose of pollutants per unit of body weight is significantly higher for a child than the calculated adult-based estimate.

Preschool children are in the most vulnerable position. Preschool standards require children to spend time outdoors, usually once or twice a day: before lunch and after the daytime nap. In total, a child in kindergarten may spend up to two to three hours outdoors each day, in almost any weather. In Turksib and Alatau districts, where average daily PM2.5 concentrations exceed 56-59 µg/m³, these outdoor periods take place in air classified by the AQI as “Unhealthy for all groups,” the same category in which international organizations recommend limiting outdoor activity even for healthy adults. For a three-year-old child with an immature respiratory system, this means regular, repeated exposure day after day, which is neither offset nor fully recovered from overnight.

Conclusion 

The analysis shows that air pollution in Almaty has become an integral part of the everyday environment in which hundreds of thousands of children grow, study, and spend most of their day. Large part of the school year takes place under conditions of chronic exceedance of WHO recommendations for PM2.5. The heaviest burden falls on the northern districts of the city, yet even the most favorable parts of Almaty remain far from safe pollution levels.

What is particularly alarming is not only the level of PM2.5, but also its persistent nature. Exposure is repeated every day: in the morning on the way to school, during outdoor walks and activities, and in the evening on the way home.

For children, polluted air becomes part of the environment in which they grow up and interact with the city.

The air around schools and kindergartens is directly linked to children’s health, development, and quality of life. The safety of this air is gradually becoming one of the key issues of Almaty’s urban environment and should be considered part of public health and child protection policy. Air quality near educational institutions is no longer only an environmental issue. It is a question of the conditions in which the health and future of the city’s next generation are being shaped.

Against the backdrop of Almaty’s continued population growth and the increasing number of children in schools and kindergartens, the significance of this problem will only grow. Today, new educational institutions are often built in areas with the highest PM2.5 burden, while a large share of children spend years of schooling under conditions of chronic smog.

Reducing this burden requires a systemic approach. Possible areas of action include:

• accelerated reduction of emissions from coal-based heating in the private sector;
• reduction of transport emissions around educational institutions;
• consideration of air quality when planning and building new schools and kindergartens;
• development of an urban air monitoring system near educational institutions and indoors;
• introduction of response protocols for schools and kindergartens during episodes of high air pollution, including:
• use of air purifiers in classrooms or installation of air filtration in ventilation systems;
• restriction of children’s outdoor activity during periods of high pollution;
• greater transparency and accessibility of air quality data for parents and teachers.

 

Methodological Note

The analysis is based on continuous measurements of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) recorded by sensors from the Almaty Air Initiative (AAI) network and open sources from October to April 2025. The network includes around 200 sensors, some of which are installed directly near educational institutions or within a radius of 300-500 meters from them.

The analysis uses data from 1,360 educational institutions, including 352 schools and 1,008 kindergartens, as well as more than 5,000 hourly PM2.5 observations. For institutions located near sensors, average daily PM2.5 concentrations were calculated directly. For more distant institutions, a weighted average PM2.5 value was calculated using data from the 3-5 nearest sensors through the inverse distance weighting method (IDW). This is a standard spatial interpolation method used in epidemiological exposure studies.

Regulatory thresholds used in this material:

• WHO recommendations: annual average PM2.5 – 5 µg/m³; daily average – 15 µg/m³ (WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines, 2021).
• Kazakhstan’s maximum permissible concentration: daily average PM2.5 – 35 µg/m³; one-time maximum – 160 µg/m³.
• AQI (US EPA scale): Good <9 µg/m³,  Moderate 9–35, Unhealthy for Sensitive 35–55 , Unhealthy 55–125,  Very Unhealthy 125–225,  Hazardous >225 µg/m³.