Air Pollution Kills 7 Million People A Year: WHO
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Medical ailments brought on by air pollution is causing up to 7 million deaths a year, said a new report by the World Health Organisation, making air pollution the world’s largest single environmental health risk.
Medical ailments brought on by air pollution is causing up to 7 million deaths a year, said a new report by the World Health Organisation, making air pollution the world’s largest single environmental health risk.
According to WHO estimates, there were about 4.3 million deaths in 2012 caused by indoor air pollution, mostly people cooking inside using wood and coal stoves in Asia. 3.7 million more deaths that year came from outdoor air pollution, of which nearly 90 percent were in developing countries.
“The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes,” said Dr Maria Neira, Director of WHO’s Department for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.
[quote]“Few risks have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution; the evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe,” she added.[/quote]The top outdoor air pollution-caused diseases that subsequently led to death include ischaemic heart disease (40 percent), stroke (40 percent), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (10 percent), lung cancer (6 percent) and acute lower respiratory infections in children (3 percent.)
As for indoor air pollution-caused deaths, the leading diseases were stroke (34 percent), ischaemic heart disease (26 percent) and ), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (22 percent).
WHO’s report noted women had higher levels of exposure than men in developing countries.
“Poor women and children pay a heavy price from indoor air pollution since they spend more time at home breathing in smoke and soot from leaky coal and wood cook stoves,” said Flavia Bustreo, WHO Assistant Director-General for family, women and children’s health.
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Regionally, low- and middle-income countries in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific Regions had the largest air pollution-related burden in 2012, with a total of 3.3 million deaths linked to indoor air pollution and 2.6 million deaths related to outdoor air pollution.
For comparison’s sake, a 2008 WHO report estimated outdoor pollution led to about 1.3 million deaths, while about 1.9 million people were killed by indoor pollution. The jump in figures is due to a change in research methods, AFP reports.
