“Know the air before you play.”
A map built for athletes with asthma — and anyone who cares about breathing better while playing sports.
PlayBreathe helps you find the most breathable sports fields in your city by combining air quality, heat, and green-space data into one simple score.
- Explore the map
- Choose smarter places to play
- Breathe easier
About the Project
Cities are full of sports fields, but they don’t all offer the same conditions for healthy play. Air pollution, extreme heat, traffic, and lack of tree cover can make some fields far harder to breathe in—especially for people with asthma or other respiratory sensitivities.
PlayBreathe started as a research project to answer a simple question:
Where can athletes breathe more easily while playing outdoors?
We use environmental data such as:
Air Quality
Surface Temperature
Tree Canopy
Neighborhood Health Indicators
PlayBreathe assigns each field a Breathability Score that helps players, families, and coaches make more informed decisions about where and when to play.
The current map focuses on a selected set of soccer fields in New York City, serving as a starting point and proof of concept. But this is just the beginning.
Our goal is to grow PlayBreathe into a community-powered platform.
In the future, we plan to crowdsource field data, local observations, and environmental measurements from users across different cities—allowing the map to expand, improve, and reflect real on-the-ground experiences.
Whether you’re an athlete with asthma, a coach looking out for your team, or someone who simply cares about healthier outdoor spaces, PlayBreathe is designed to turn environmental data into something practical, accessible, and actionable.
How the Breathability Score Works
(Quick Overview)
The Breathability Score turns complex environmental and health data into a simple 0–100 score that helps athletes, families, and coaches understand how easy it is to breathe while playing sports outdoors. Each field is evaluated using multiple data sources and combined in a transparent way to give a clear, comparable result.
Air Quality
Fine particles, traffic-related pollution, and ozone levels
Heat
Air temperature, surface temperature, and how much hotter the field is than nearby grass
Green Space
Tree canopy and nearby vegetation that help cool and clean the air
Health Context
Asthma rates, population density, and heat vulnerability
All factors are normalized, weighted based on environmental and public-health research, and combined into a single score—higher means more breathable conditions. The score is designed to support better play-day decisions, not replace medical advice.