The current issue of the newly revamped CityWeekend Beijing Parents & Kids magazine includes an air pollution story where I discuss tips on what you and your family can do to protect yourself while living here in Beijing. It’s essentially a follow-up study of my piece last autumn discussing my one week project walking around Beijing with a particle monitor. For this article, I again borrowed that monitor for a week and got more comprehensive readings from malls, hotels, offices and more homes. And yes, many findings will again surprise you!

The article has a lot more detail, including specific pollution numbers in certain popular malls and cafes that were dangerously high — even higher than the already-hazardous outdoor air. A couple common themes:

• Non-smoking sections are almost completely ineffective
• Some indoor plants can help a lot
• A good indoor air purifier can really help
• The U.S. Embassy’s hourly pollution index website has become invaluable to Beijingers

You can pick up the mag at your usual local places. Meanwhile, I have a big category of air pollution articles.