November 20, 2018
A 2017 report by the Global Commission on Pollution and Health identified pollution as the leading cause of death and disability in the world. But researchers at EPIC have now further established that emissions of airborne particulate matter – a mixture of small particles and liquid droplets in smoke that can affect the heart and lungs if inhaled – pose the single biggest threat to human health globally.
In fact, air pollution’s impact on life expectancy exceeds that of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS, behavioral killers like cigarette smoking and even war, according to the study.
The findings are based on EPIC’s new Air Quality Life Index, which charts the relationship between long-term exposure to particulate matter and life expectancy at the local level.
Unlike previous efforts to demonstrate the health effects of air pollution, the new index isolates the effect of air pollution from other factors that impact health. It also estimates the loss of life expectancy for the average person, compared to previous studies that reported only the number of people who die prematurely from pollution-related illness.