The 5th edition of the report “State of Global Air“(SoGA) is scary reading. This Wednesday, June 19, the American research institutes Health Effects Institute (HEI) and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in collaboration with Unicef wrote a report explaining that Air pollution was the 2nd leading cause of death worldwide.
The number one risk factor for death remains high blood pressure. Now the poor air quality (indoor and outdoor) surpasses tobacco and poor diet as a cause of death. She would be responsible for 8.1 million deaths worldwide in 2021. 90% of these deaths are due to fine particles.
In children under 5 years old, it is also the 2nd cause of death after malnutrition. Air pollution would have made 700,000 child victims under 5 years old. Of which 500,000 would be due to the alteration of domestic air due to cooking with polluting fuels in living children mainly on the African and Asian continents.
In 2019, date of last estimate: air pollution was responsible for 6.7 million deaths worldwide according to the database of “Global Burden of Disease“. This is a international epidemiology research program carried out in 204 countries and managed by IHME. In total, there are more than 10,000 researchers participating in the development of this program.
The study reveals that of the 8.1 million deaths, 7.8 million of them (i.e. more than 90%!) are caused by fine particle air pollution. PM2.5 are fine particles whose diameters is less than 2.5 micrometers. They are “so small that‘they stay in the lungs and can enter the bloodstream“. These PM2.5 are everywhere around us.
We can breathe them mainly because of fossil fuels, discharge linked to transport, housing, industrial activities, and also forest fires. “Virtually everyone on the planet breathes harmful levels of air pollution every day. […] Which weighs heavily on health systems, economies and societies“, write the authors.
In addition to being harmful to health because they increasethe risks of disabling diseases for millions of people“, PM2.5″contribute to greenhouse gases that warm the planet“. According to the report, other pollutants are responsible for several thousand deaths. As ozone, prolonged exposure to which caused the death of 490,000 people in 2021.
Among the latter, 14,000 victims died due to lung diseases chronic obstructive diseases. Ozone is a pollutant formed from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) which is mainly found in… vehicle exhaust gases!
“Densely populated urban areas, particularly in high-income countries, experience often the highest levels of exposure to nitrogen dioxide“, report the researchers. And unfortunately, this is not likely to improve if we do nothing to limit global warming in the years to come.
“As the planet continues to warm due to climate change, regions with high NO2 levels can expect ozone levels to rise, leading to even more serious health effects.“
Sources: Libération
