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Research shows global pollution kills 9 million people every year



A new study blames all types of pollution for 9 million deaths a year globally, with the number of deaths attributed to dirty air from cars, truck and the industry is up 55% since 2000.

That increase is offset by fewer pollution deaths from rudimentary indoor kitchens and water contaminated with human and animal waste, so the total number of pollution deaths in 2019 equivalent to 2015.

The United States is the only fully industrialized country in the top 10 in terms of total pollution deaths, ranking seventh with 142,883 pollution deaths, according to a new study in the journal in 2019, located between Bangladesh and Ethiopia, according to a new study in this journal. Lancet Planet Health. Tuesday’s pre-pandemic research is based on calculate from the Global Burden of Disease database and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. India and China They lead the world in pollution deaths with nearly 2.4 million and nearly 2.2 million deaths each year, but these two countries also have the world’s largest populations.

When calculating mortality per population, the United States ranks 31st from the bottom with 43.6 pollution deaths per 100,000. Chad and the Central African Republic ranked highest with around 300 pollution deaths per 100,000 people, more than half of which were due to tainted water, while Brunei, Qatar and Iceland had mortality rates due to tainted water. pollution is the lowest, between 15 and 23. The global average is 117 pollution deaths per 100,000 people.

Video: Climate change threatens to wipe out air pollution progress

Research says pollution kills about as many people each year around the world as cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke combined.

“9 million deaths is a lot,” said Philip Landrigan, Director of the Global Public Health Program and the Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College.

“The bad news is it’s not going down,” Landrigan said. “We’re profiting from the easy stuff and we’re seeing the harder stuff, which is ambient air pollution (outdoor industry) and chemical pollution, still going up.”

Not necessarily this way, the researchers say.

“They are preventable deaths. Dr Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study. She says the calculations make sense and if so. so conservative about what it causes pollution, that the real death toll may be higher.

The certificates for these deaths do not indicate contamination. Landrigan said they list heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, other lung problems and diabetes as being “strongly correlated” with pollution. Then, putting these together with actual deaths, the researchers looked at the number of deaths by cause, the pollution exposure was calculated by various factors, and then calculated the response. Complex exposure responses are drawn from large epidemiological studies involving thousands of people over decades of research, he said. . That’s the same way scientists can say that smoking causes deaths from cancer and heart disease.

“That cannon of information builds causality,” says Landrigan. “That’s how we do it.”

Five outside experts on public health and air pollution, including Goldman, told the Associated Press that the study follows mainstream scientific thought. Renee Salas, an emergency room physician and Harvard professor, who was not involved in the study, said, “The American Heart Association determined more than a decade ago that exposure to (small ) like that generated from burning fossil fuels are causal for heart disease and death.”

“While people focus on lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, few realize that eliminating air pollution is an important prescription for improving their heart health,” says Salas.

Three-quarters of all pollution deaths are caused by air pollution and much of that is “a mix of pollution from fixed sources like coal-fired power plants and steel mills on the one hand and mobile sources like cars, trucks and buses on the other. And it’s just a big global problem,” said Landrigan, a public health physician. “And it’s getting worse around the world as countries develop and cities grow.”

In New Delhi, India, air pollution peaks in the winter months, and last year the city saw only two days of air pollution-free. This is the first time in four years the city has experienced a clean air day during the winter months.

Air pollution remains the leading cause of death in South Asia, reaffirming what is known, but this increase in deaths means toxic emissions Anumita Roychowdhury, director of the advocacy group Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi.

“This data is a reminder of what is happening but also an opportunity to fix it,” says Roychowdhury.

Death due to pollution It is skyrocketing in the poorest areas, experts say.

“The problem is worst in areas of the world with the highest population density (e.g. Asia), where financial and government resources to tackle pollution are limited and pulled thin to address a wide range of challenges including health care availability and diet as well as pollution,” said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Institute for Health Impacts, who is not involved. researcher, said.

In 2000, industrial air pollution killed an estimated 2.9 million people a year globally. By 2015, that number had grown to 4.2 million and in 2019 it was 4.5 million, the study said. Research shows that household air pollution, mainly from inefficient stoves and air pollution, killed 6.7 million people in 2019.

Lead pollution – some lead additive words have been banned from use in gasoline in every country in the world and also from old, recycled paint the battery and other manufacturing industries – kills 900,000 people a year, while water pollution is responsible for 1.4 million deaths a year. The study found that occupational health pollution caused an additional 870,000 deaths.

In the United States, about 20,000 people a year die from hypertension caused by lead pollution, heart disease and kidney disease, mainly from occupational hazards, Landrigan said. Lead and asbestos are major American chemical occupational hazards, and they kill about 65,000 people a year because of pollution, he said. The study found that the number of deaths from air pollution in the United States in 2019 was 60,229, far more than the number of deaths due to air pollution. Sugar in the US, hit a 16-year high of almost 43,000 last year.

Modern types of pollution are increasing in most countries, especially developing countries, but have decreased between 2000 and 2019 in the United States, European Union and Ethiopia. Study co-author Richard Fuller, founder of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution and president of Pure Earth, a nonprofit that works on clean-up programs, said in about a dozen countries.

The study authors made eight recommendations to reduce deaths from pollution, highlighting the need for better monitoring, better reporting, and stronger government systems to regulate industry and autos.

“We absolutely know how to solve each of those problems,” says Fuller. “What’s missing is the political will.”



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