AsianScientist (Sep. 18, 2015) – According to a study published in Nature, 3.3 million people die prematurely from air pollution each year. China and India are among the top two contributing countries, with death rates at 1.36 million and 650,000 per annum respectively.
“Human health impact is always a big issue in atmospheric pollution studies. In our case, we wanted to investigate which emissions had the most important impact on human health,” corresponding author Professor Andrea Pozzer from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry told Asian Scientist Magazine.
To address this problem, Pozzer and her team used a global atmospheric chemistry model to investigate the link between premature deaths and seven sources of air pollution categories. In their model, they included a scenario where either all air pollution emissions were considered equally toxic or differentially toxic. This distinction gives a more accurate profile of individual air pollution emission source.
They observed that in Asia, residential emissions (from cooking and heating), particularly in China and India, had the largest impact on premature mortality. Globally, it contributed to nearly a third of the air pollution-related deaths, and is almost two-fold higher in their alternative differential toxicity model.
Based on their model, the researchers estimate that residential emission causes one million deaths per year. In contrast, traffic and power generation had the highest impact on the air pollution-induced premature death rates in the United States.
Other sources of air pollution emission include agriculture, natural, power generation, industry, biomass burning and land traffic. Agriculture contributed to 20 percent of the premature death toll, while the last five sources of human origins contributed to one-third of the mortality rates.
The finding has significant implications for planning strategies to combat the rising air pollution levels for different parts of the world.
“[The results] would help policy makers to target their efforts [in reducing air pollution]. For example, in East Asia the best gain in air quality would be by reducing residential pollution (i.e. cleaner cooking methods or better heating systems), while for most of the US, traffic is responsible for low air quality and have strong health impact,” explained Pozzer.
In addition, they also went on to do prediction for premature mortality rates in the decades to come. If there were no efforts made to reduce air pollution rates (a Business-as-Usual model), the premature mortality rate could double to 6.6 million by 2050. This is mainly attributed to increase in urbanization and continued growth of population.
Perhaps it is time to turn off that air conditioning in the name of reducing our household carbon emission.
The article can be found at: Lelieveld et al. (2015) The Contribution of Outdoor Air Pollution Sources to Premature Mortality on a Global Scale.
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Source: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Andrea Pozzer.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
