Air pollution: 6.6 million premature deaths in 2050!

Excerpt

The theme air pollution has gained increased attention over the past decade [1, 2]. Recent research indicates that outdoor air pollution leads to more than 3 million premature deaths around the world each year. These impressive findings were published on 16 September 2015 in Nature by Lelieveld et al. from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry Department, Mainz, Germany [3]. The authors investigated worldwide the link between premature mortality and seven sources of atmospheric pollutants in urban and rural environments. China showed the most premature deaths with 1.36 million deaths, with India ranking second at 645,000 deaths and Pakistan third with 111,000 deaths. Approximately 75 % of the deaths are due to cerebral strokes and heart attacks. The premature mortality can be linked to a wide range of causes including the effect on human health of outdoor air pollutants such as ozone and fine particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 µm (PM2.5). Air pollutants induce inflammation and increase oxidative stress within vascular tissue, ultimately leading to endothelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, and cerebral strokes. In particular low-quality fuels used for cooking, heating and waste disposal have resulted in a high number of premature deaths in densely populated parts of Asia, including China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal. Agricultural emissions were the leading cause of premature air pollution deaths in the Eastern United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Korea and Japan, followed by traffic and power generation emissions. Model projections based on a business-as-usual emission scenario indicate that the contribution of outdoor air pollution to premature mortality could double by 2050. The authors of the Nature paper foresee therefore that, if no further interventions are undertaken, the annual toll from polluted air may lead to 6.6 million premature deaths by 2050, with the biggest increase in Asia. …