The World Health Organization (WHO) has released an alarming report on Tuesday, Sept. 17, noting that about nine out of 10 people in the world are breathing air of poor quality, which is estimated to cause around six million deaths every year.
According to the model WHO used, about 92 percent of the world's population are living in areas that don't meet the organizations' recommended air quality standards. The model is developed by WHO in collaboration with University of Bath, U.K. based on satellite measurements, ground station monitors and air transport models in over 3,000 locations including both rural and urban areas.
It is noted in the report that about three million deaths are recorded every year of outdoor air pollution. About 6.5 million deaths were estimated to have occurred in 2012 of both outdoor and indoor air pollution, which accounts to 11.6 percent of deaths in the world.
Low and middle income countries suffer 90 percent of air pollution-related deaths where two out of three deaths occur in WHO's Western Pacific regions and South-East Asia. About 94 percent of the deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The risk of acute respiratory infections is also elevated due to air pollution.
Household fuels, industrial activities, pollution from transports, burning of wastes and emission from coal-fired power plants are the major contributors of air pollution. Other than manmade pollution natural events like dust storms that are common in regions close to deserts contribute to air pollution as well.
Nearly one million people in China are said to have died of breathing polluted air in 2012, followed by India and Russia with 600,000 and 140,000 death tolls, respectively. About 38,043 deaths were estimated to have occurred in United States of pollution caused by fine particulate matter.
"Countries are confronted with the reality of better data. Now we have the figures of how many citizens are dying from air pollution," told Maria Neria, director of the WHO's public health and the environment department, to Guardian. "What we are learning is, this is very bad. Now there are no excuses for not taking action."
Gavin Shaddick, who led the international team that organized the data, noted that air pollution is posing a major risk to people's health and reducing the pollution levels could help save tens of thousands of lives globally.
Photo: Eric Schmuttenmaer| Flickr
