In the News
September 12, 2017
It is well documented that poor air quality impacts health, for the first time the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPI) has developed an Air Quality-Life Index (AQLI) to measure by how much. If India met its own air quality standard for only PM 2.5 (40 µg/m³) every Indian would live an average 1 year more. If India met the more stringent WHO standards for PM 2.5 (10 µg/m³) Indians would live on average 4 years longer.
National Capital Region residents are losing out on almost 6 years of life because of the dangerous air pollution levels. If WHO standards were met in NCR, people would live 9 years longer. In Kolkata and Mumbai better air quality would translate into almost 3.5 year longer life spans.
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India’s last environment minister stirred controversy by suggesting that the link between air pollution and health impacts is yet to be established, and data about air pollution deaths is particularly problematic. A government effort to study the health impacts of air pollution has not taken off.
However, Indian scientists have argued that the link between air pollution and health impacts like respiratory disorders and cardiovascular morbidity. Elderly people and children are particularly susceptible.
“Epidemiological studies have shown that the smallest forms of particulate pollution (PM10 and PM2.5) are the most damaging to human health,” Greenstone said. “The study itself utilizes a PM10 monitoring network throughout China from 2004 – 2012, while the AQLI utilizes grid-level global estimates of PM2.5.”
The estimated average PM 2.5 concentration for population-weighted exposure increased from 59 in 1990 to 73 µg/m3 in 2015 in India. The Global Burden of Disease 2015 report estimated that PM 2.5 contribute to 4.2 million deaths globally, a majority of which occur in India and China. The new report presents a different but no less distressing aspect of the problem.