The study found that even if the air quality met these standards, there would have been 0.3 million deaths associated with long-term exposure to air pollution.
No one in India lives in areas where the yearly average pollution levels are below the levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), with the high levels of PM2.5 associated with 1.5 million deaths a year, according to a study recently published in Lancet Planet Health.
In fact, 81.9% of the Indian population was living in areas where the air quality did not even meet the country’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5 — much higher than the WHO’s recommendation of 5µg/m³. The study found that even if the air quality met these standards, there would have been 0.3 million deaths associated with long-term exposure to air pollution.
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“This shows the striking impact of air pollution on health. We need to take pro-active measures to control pollution levels by identifying the sources — whether it’s construction, vehicular pollution, crop burning, construction — and addressing it. Even if we are able to bring the levels of particulate matter to the NAAQS, it will reduce the number of deaths, albeit in smaller numbers than if we were able to bring it to the WHO levels,” said Dr Dorairaj Prabhakaran, one of the authors of the paper.
Air pollution, especially the PM2.5, is known to affect not just the respiratory system, but also increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, cause spikes in blood pressure, and lead to developmental delays in children.
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Importantly, the study found that every 10 µg/m³ increase in the levels of PM2.5 increased the risk of death due to any cause by 8.6%. The pollution levels in the country ranged from 11·2 µg/m³ observed in Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh in 2019 to 119 µg/m³ observed in Ghaziabad and Delhi in 2016.
The researchers utilised data from the civic registration system to look at the total number of deaths — of which they found 25% or 1.5 million could be linked to exposure to high levels of particulate matter — and ground station-based as well as satellite-based data to estimate the levels of pollution during the study period of 2009 to 2019. “Our estimates are slightly higher than the previous 1.1 million deaths estimated by the Global Burden of Disease — it could be because of the increase in population and also because of the methodology used,” said Dr Prabhakaran.
NOTE – This article was originally published in indianexpress and can be viewed here
Tags: #AirPollution, #climate, #climatechange, #environment, #getgreengetgrowring, #globalwarming, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #planet, #Pollution
