More and more people are exposed to air pollution around the world. However, it has dangerous consequences for health: respiratory disorders, immune diseases, etc.
- One in five deaths is linked to air pollution worldwide.
- Pollution has both short-term and long-term consequences for children.
Three out of four children breathe polluted air in France. Unicef, the United Nations children’s organization, publishes this figure in a report produced with Réseau Action Climat. City children are the most affected, but today most of the youngest live in these cities. The main cause of this pollution is road traffic, which generates emissions of nitrogen oxides and fine particles. Children are more vulnerable to these emissions because their bodies are growing, but they are not all equal. According to the report, the poorest children are even more vulnerable to pollution: they are more likely to accumulate exposures, because of the precariousness of their housing, indoor air pollution or even noise. “This exposure to air pollution has serious consequences on the health of children, and can lead to respiratory and immune problems, but also pathologies such as diabetes, obesity or depression.“, says the Unicef report.
A worrying situation in Africa
Sometimes it leads to death. According to a study by Boston College, published in The Lancet Planetary Healthair pollution was responsible for 1.1 million deaths in Africa in 2019. 700,000 deaths are the result of indoor pollution, mostly caused by cooking stoves, and 400,000 are related to air pollution. outdoor air, called ambient air by researchers. “The most disturbing result was the rise in deaths from ambient air pollutioncommented Philip Landrigan, director of this study. Although this increase is still modest, it threatens to increase exponentially as African cities grow over the next two to three decades.The whole continent will be transformed in the years to come. According to the estimates of the authors of the study, the African population is expected to increase from 1.3 billion people in 2020 to 4.3 billion in 2100.
The second leading cause of death on the continent
According to this report, indoor and outdoor air pollution is the second leading cause of death in Africa: it kills more people than tobacco, alcohol or road accidents. But it also harms the development of children. Researchers estimate that exposure to air pollution in infants and young children led to the loss of 1.96 billion IQ points across the continent. “Air pollution in Africa has major negative impacts on health, human capital and the economy, summarize the authors. These impacts increase in magnitude as countries develop.t.” They provide several lines of work to limit the consequences of pollution on human health: investing in renewable energies, reducing road traffic, regulating the burning of waste in the open air, etc.
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