Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Award winners Quantum Consumer Solutions and Adrian Hodges Advisory on behalf of the Clean Air Fund

Editor’s note: Quantum Consumer Solutions and Adrian Hodges Advisory on behalf of the Clean Air Fund are the winners of the 2022 Nonprofit/Social Enterprise Project Award which is a category in the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards. This award is given to a company(ies) that has done or is currently conducting a research project that has an impact on a non profit, government organization or social/human interest issue. To find out more about the awards click here.

The Clean Air Fund is a philanthropic initiative with a mission to tackle air pollution. Quantum Consumer Solutions and Adrian Hodges Advisory worked with Clean Air Fund to uncover strategies that would spur health care professionals to act against air pollution. The result was a multi-method international research program that connected with over 1,000 members of the health care community in five nations. Insights and implications reached more than 140 stakeholders within Clean Air Fund’s partnership network, and they have published the findings to help nonprofits and governments.

Quirk's conducted a Q&A with Abigail Lappo, associate partner, Quantum Consumer Solutions about their project. 

Why work with medical professionals on air pollution?

Health care professionals occupy a unique position that makes them powerful allies in the fight against air pollution:

  • They can talk with credibility about the serious health impacts of air pollution.
  • They are well connected to their communities through patients and peer networks.
  • For many health care professionals, the status of their profession gives them gravitas and influence.

Their community also has the potential to make an impact in multiple roles; from advising patients to lobbying the government. 

What were some of the challenges you faced during this project? How did you overcome them?

Health care professionals are often in demand and stretched for time, especially in some of the countries we researched where the health system is less developed. The instinct of many health care professionals was to say they did not have enough time to act against air pollution, and so moderators had to respond carefully to highlight the different possible roles they could play, beyond campaigning - which was their first association with tackling air pollution.

We also had to develop a strategy that reconciled five very different countries and health care cultures. This was done by providing market-level reports, but making sure we left sufficient time to create some overarching frameworks.

Would you change anything about the project?

We conducted the fieldwork during an intense period of the pandemic, when it was hard to get time with health care professionals and we were also restricted to remote video interviews due to social distancing rules. While this restriction meant that we really honed our interview techniques, in a perfect world we would also have been able to get more direct access to the environments in which some of our health care participants were working so as to build a richer understanding of their context.