Air pollution shortens life by 3 years: Study

By Kapil Kajal

The increasing air pollution in Bengaluru is giving rise to a number of life-threatening diseases, and thereby reducing life expectancy, scientists say.

According to a study by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the University Medical Center, Mainz, the global loss of life expectancy caused by air pollution is higher than many other risk factors such as smoking, infectious diseases or violence.

According to the study, air pollution caused 8.8 million premature deaths in 2015 and caused an average reduction in life expectancy per capita of 2.9 years while in comparison, tobacco smoking reduces the life expectancy by an average of 2.2 years (7.2 million deaths), HIV/AIDS by 0.7 years (1 million deaths), parasitic and vector-borne diseases such as malaria, by 0.6 years (600,000 deaths).

"Given the huge impact on public health and the global population, one could say that our results indicate an air pollution pandemic," stated Jos Lelieveld, the primary author of the study.

The health effects of exposure to air pollution range from increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits to increased risk of premature death and an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

India highly impacted

According to a report by The Lancet, 76.8% of the Indian population of India has been exposed to high air pollution.

In 2017, 1.24 million deaths were caused due to air pollution in India, out of which 51.4% of the people were below 70 years, it mentioned while adding that air pollution reduces life expectancy by two years in India.

A 2019 report by the Centre for Science and Environment stated that air pollution is the third-highest cause of death among all health risks ranking, just above smoking in India, and this is a combined effect of particulate matter, ozone and household air pollution, reported PTI.

The chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to air pollution is at 49%, followed by lung cancer deaths at 33% per cent, diabetes and ischaemic heart disease at 22% each and stroke at 15%, added the report.

Bengaluru, most vulnerable

The WHO says pollutants with the strongest evidence for a public health concern are particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. The level of these pollutants is rising rapidly in Bengaluru because of the vehicular emission, industrial fumes, municipal and agricultural waste sites and waste incineration, among other things.

Dr H Paramesh, a professor at the Divecha Center for Climate Change in the Indian Institute of Science, stated that beside COPD and asthma which are the major non-communicable diseases, air pollution is also affecting the people of Bengaluru by giving them cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes which reduce the life expectancy of every person. DrParamesh said that any particular disease from the disease that can be diagnosed with air pollution can reduce up to a month to 10 years of life expectancy depending on the seriousness of the disease.

According to Paramesh, the incidence of asthma in children increased from 9% in 1979 to 25.5% in 2009 and asthma has increased from 20% to 72.5% between 1994 and 2009 in Bengaluru.

An environmentalist Sandeep Anirudhan stated that though medical science has been able to increase the life expectancy from 47 in 1970, to more than 69 in 2019, but it can be further increased to over 75 if there is no air pollution but unfortunately the same science and technology is helping increase the air pollution and killing the people.

If proper steps to reduce air pollution isn’t taken, we’ll see a reduction in life expectancy in the future, he added.

(Author is Bengaluru - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)