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Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution Drafting the report Subgroups of the working party with the appropriate expertise were charged with the responsibility to produce draft chapters, with additional working party members being co-opted as required to ensure that individual subject areas were covered in detail, and that the report had full ownership from those contributing to each section. However, while recognising that specific expertise was important in developing and analysing the evidence, the working party functioned as an expert committee rather than a committee of experts. Each chapter was discussed in depth at the meetings of the working party. The chapters were subsequently edited by the chair, Professor Stephen Holgate, to ensure coherence and connectivity between the different chapters. Where chapters overlapped in content, authors worked together to avoid duplication. It was felt that chapter authors would be best placed to develop recommendations; therefore, each subgroup was responsible for developing key recommendations from each chapter to take forward. These were then assessed and edited by Ms Colleen Shannon, Professor Stephen Holgate, Mr Philip Insall and members of the RCP Strategy, Communications and Policy Department to ensure that the overarching key recommendations encapsulated the messages and views of the report. RCP library staff conducted literature searches on the following topics: air pollution and development, air pollution and obesity, and long-term effects of air pollution. In each case, the Medline database was searched using MeSH and the title and abstract fields. The search strategies used in each case are available on request. The addition of a professional healthcare writer was felt to be beneficial, to allow chapters to be summarised succinctly for a non-specialist audience. Ms Colleen Shannon was commissioned to develop accessible summaries of each chapter and the executive summary, and to work with authors in drafting recommendations. The summaries of each chapter feature in the main report and in a shorter, publicly accessible version of the report. It was felt this would help non-specialist readers to understand the key messages from each chapter. Evidence Evidence was gathered by selecting individuals/organisations that are key in the area of air pollution and related health issues. The RCP wrote to organisations and relevant individuals, requesting evidence. Most requests were for written evidence, as it was felt that this would give organisations the opportunity to submit evidence and position statements for incorporation into the report. The relevance of the evidence to the report was assessed by the working party at its meetings. All evidence has been incorporated into the report in some format. Most evidence was received as written submissions. 1 We had one oral evidence-giving session from Mr Philip Insall (formerly at Sustrans). Mr Insall was subsequently co-opted onto the working party. Many of the submissions received contained both evidence-based and consensus views from organisations. The evidence referenced large studies in the field of air quality and health, and individual case studies. 1 Some submissions received were organisational statements in this area based on current evidence. 104 © Royal College of Physicians 2016

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