Earth Today | Clean air, good health go together
Report notes connection between air pollution and NCDs
Published:Thursday | September 12, 2024 | 12:08 AM
A REDUCTION in air pollution can yield significant public health gains, but also help to tackle the escalating climate problem.
“Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic lung diseases (COPD), account for nearly 90 per cent of the total disease burden of air pollution and predominantly affect people in older age groups,” revealed the 2024 State of Global Air report.
A special report on global exposure to air pollution and its health impacts, including a look at children’s health, it was published through the collaborative efforts of the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease project.
“The remaining 10 per cent is related to factors that mostly affect young children, including respiratory infections and adverse birth outcomes ... . Air pollution accounts for 48 per cent of global deaths from COPD, 28 per cent of deaths from IHD, 27 per cent of deaths from stroke, 19 per cent of deaths from lung cancer, and 18 per cent of deaths from type 2 diabetes,” the report said.
There is also, it explained, the climate connection with which individuals and countries must contend when it comes to air pollution.
“Climate change can exacerbate the health burden of NCDs. For example, the number of deaths related to heart and lung diseases has been found to increase during heatwaves, which are becoming more common as the planet warms,” the report said.
Climate change is fuelled by the warming of the planet due to human consumption of fossil fuels, including oil and gas. With their emission of greenhouse gases, the planet warms, triggering a host of threats and impacts, including extreme weather events, the likes of which was experienced with the recent passage of Hurricane Beryl that devastated sections of the Caribbean.
However, there is yet hope.
“Although this trend is alarming, the flip side is that by reducing air pollution, we can achieve health gains, simultaneously helping to slow climate change, prevent pollution-related illnesses, and curb the interactions that exacerbate the impacts of both,” the report advanced.
To get there, however, requires a concerted effort to reduce air pollution.
“Lifestyle factors such as diet, alcohol, smoking, and physical activity are key risk factors for many NCDs; individuals and families can adopt habits to reduce the risk of disease. However, individuals, and especially children, often have little control over how much pollution they breathe,” noted the report on which the United Nations Children’s Fund also collaborated.
“The growing evidence of air pollution’s role in NCDs has brought attention to the need for more public health action at the societal level,” it added.
Examples of these efforts include the European Union’s (EU) inclusion of reducing environmental pollution as part of its Beating Cancer Plan. Among the actions listed for the EU to work towards, according to that plan, is reducing environmental pollution “by aligning the EU’s air quality standards with the World Health Organization’s guidelines and [to] reduce exposure to carcinogenic substances and radiation”.
“Recognising the importance of air pollution in NCDs, eight mayors from the Partnership for Healthy Cities are focusing their efforts on improving air quality monitoring and use data to inform public health action,” the report added.