Air pollution responsible for over 16.7 lakh deaths in India in 2019, shows study

Air pollution was responsible for 1.67 million deaths in India in 2019 – nearly 18 per cent of all deaths in the country and the largest number of air-pollution-related deaths recorded by any country in the world, says a new study.

Majority of such deaths, 0.98 million as estimated by an international team of researchers, were triggered by PM-2.5 – superfine dust particles with a size of 2.5 micron that go straight to the lungs initiating several diseases that can lead to premature deaths.

“The world’s highest ambient PM2.5 levels – on a population-weighted average – are seen in India, closely followed by Nepal,” says the analysis published in the Lancet Planetary Health on Tuesday.

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The PM-2.5 comes from vehicular, road and industrial pollution, burning of biomass and solid fuels like coal and wood used at many homes for cooking.

Other areas of concern are Bangladesh and Pakistan as both of which also have very high PM-2.5 pollution levels. China, which until the last decade had very high levels of ambient air pollution, made significant progress in recent years.

The study looks into the progress the world has made in abating all types of pollution since 2015 to update a previous analysis. Despite a few improvements, it found little action on the ground in low and middle-income countries in tackling pollution.

The study reported nine million deaths attributable to pollution in 2019 (one in six deaths), which remains the world’s largest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death, especially affecting low- and middle-income countries. The number remains the same as in 2015.

Air pollution accounts for nearly 75 per cent of the nine million deaths. In India, it is most severe in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Population-weighted mean exposure to ambient air pollution peaked nationally in India at 95 micrograms per cubic metre in 2014, was reduced to 82 micrograms by 2017, but more recently has been rising slowly again.

“India does not have a strong centralized administrative system to drive its air pollution control efforts and consequently improvements in overall air quality have been limited and uneven,” the study noted.

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Even though there has been some progress in recent years in some of the Indian cities, in more than 90 per cent of the country, the ambient air pollution levels remain well above the WHO guideline for PM-2.5 level of 10 microgram.

Of the nine million pollution-attributable deaths in 2019, air pollution (both household and ambient) remains responsible for the greatest number of deaths at 6.67 million worldwide. Water pollution was responsible for 1.36 million premature deaths. Lead contributed 900,000 premature deaths, followed by toxic occupational hazards at 870,000 deaths.

The decline in deaths from traditional pollution since 2000 (household air pollution from solid fuels and unsafe water) is most evident in Africa.

However, such a mortality decline has been offset by a substantial increase in deaths from exposure to industrial pollution – like ambient air pollution, lead pollution, and other forms of chemical pollution – across all regions over the past 20 years.

This is particularly evident in Southeast Asia, where rising levels of industrial pollution are combined with ageing populations and increasing numbers of people exposed.