Fine particle pollution represents the number one risk to human health, according to a study.
- Air pollution by fine particles wreaks more havoc than any other external factor on human life, according to an expert report.
- It poses a greater risk to global health than smoking or alcohol consumption.
- The funds allocated to the fight against air pollution are not sufficient, warn scientists.
Air pollution, the number one global threat to human health? Yes if we believe a report from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
According to experts, fine particle pollution emitted by motor vehicles, industry and fires increases the risk of developing lung diseases, heart disease, stroke or cancer.
Air pollution is three times more dangerous than alcohol
“The data clearly shows that pollution remains the greatest external risk to human health, with an impact on life expectancy comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol consumption and unsafe water, and more than five times higher than that of transportation-related injuries, such as car accidents”, we can read in the report.
In the countries most affected by pollution (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Nigeria and Indonesia) people lose one to more than six years of life due to the air they they breathe.
And while there is a large global fund for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which disburses $4 billion each year for these issues, there is no equivalent set of resources for air pollution. the air, regret the authors.
Air pollution: the impact on health would be even greater
Fine particles are less than 2.5 micrometers and are dangerous for health since they cross all the body’s barriers.
“We will find them in all the organs of the body“, explained Jean-Baptiste Renard, CNRS research director in Orléans, specialist in fine pollution particles, on France Info:
“It is a major cause of mortality and I think that the figures are underestimated since we do not take into account all the pathologies, now identified, which result from pollution“.