Are We Facing an Air Pollution Pandemic?

Air pollution is responsible for an estimated 8.8 million premature deaths, according to a new study published in the journal Cardiovascular Research. The authors behind the study used their findings to ascertain the exact loss of life expectancy (LLE) that air pollution causes in different parts of the world, concluding that on average, people all over the globe will die three years earlier as a result.

That staggering figure has prompted the authors to declare that we are currently facing an “air pollution pandemic” and requesting governments, corporations and individuals to take immediate action to curb the contamination. While some ambient air pollution is unavoidable, they concede, certain measures could make a huge difference to the quality of the air we breathe and the longevity of our lives.

New perspective

The latest paper was ground-breaking in its use of the Global Exposure Mortality Model (GEMM), a new method of quantifying how many premature deaths exposure to particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) is responsible for. Access to major new low cost air quality monitoring technology has rapidly improved all over the globe in recent years, giving us a much better idea than ever before just how polluted the air we breathe really is.

Their findings revealed that 8.8 million individuals are killed as a result of breathing contaminated air each year, with 75% of those over the age of 60, which is far higher than previously thought. The global mean mortality rate from air pollution stands at around 120 per 100,000, but it’s far higher in East Asia (at 196 per 100,000) and concerningly higher Europe (at 133 per 100,000).

Bigger killer than smoking, AIDs and war

Perhaps one of the most shocking aspects of the research is its comparison of premature deaths caused by air pollution to other prolific killers. For example, AIDs kills one million people per year and airborne diseases (such as malaria) are responsible for 600,000 fatalities. All forms of violence, including wartime deaths, amount to just 530,000 premature fatalities.

Smoking is undoubtedly the biggest rival to air pollution as the world’s top killer, responsible for 7.2 million deaths per year. But, as study author Thomas Münzel points out, the latter receives far less media coverage or government action. “Both air pollution and smoking are preventable, but over the past decades much less attention has been paid to air pollution than smoking,” he said.

Shorter lifespans

The effect of that poor air quality means that people are living shorter lives than they would otherwise. In the UK, for example, it’s thought that air pollution knocks around 18 months off the average Briton’s life, while the global average in LLE is three years. That’s because air pollution is known to cause or exacerbate fatal conditions such as lung cancer, strokes and heart disease.

The good news is that the solution is in our own hands. Continued monitoring of the situation, perhaps by uniting air pollution sensors with 5G basestations, is crucial to assessing our progress, while weaning ourselves off damaging fossil fuels would be a huge step in the right direction. In fact, the authors of the study estimate that an immediate end to all fossil fuel combustion would result in an increase of between 1.1 and 1.7 years to the global mean life expectancy.