Heating, Cooking Are Top Contributors to Air-Pollution Deaths Worldwide

In the United Kingdom, 15,488 people died due to air pollution, a majority of which could be found in agriculture.

Jos Lelieveld, PhD, lead author of the study and head of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry’s division of atmospheric chemistry, said that in Australia about 280 people face premature death every year because of air pollutants.

If we talk about India, in another 10 years or so, Indian capital will record the world’s largest number of premature deaths due to air pollution among all top cities worldwide.

Of those, emissions from residential energy usage involving fuels used in heating and cooking, mostly in China and India, were the leading cause of death globally, the researchers said.

Lelieveld said that when most people think about outdoor air pollution, they consider that traffic and industry have the largest impact on global premature morality, and not residential energy emissions and agriculture.

“They’re so small that they can actually get deep into the lungs, into the alveoli, and get into your bloodstream”, says New York University professor of population health and environmental medicine George Thurston, who was not involved in the study.

The scientists noted that it was hard to quantify premature deaths related to air pollution, as air quality is not monitored in all regions and also because the toxicity of particles from various sources may vary.

Published in the journal Nature, the study, was conducted by combining a global atmospheric chemistry model with health statistics and population data.

A report from philly.com says scientists in Germany, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia and at Harvard University have calculated the most detailed estimate of problems of air pollution.

In some countries, emissions from traffic and power generation were linked to premature deaths, while in the eastern part of U.S. , Europe, Russian Federation and East Asia, farming practices, including chemicals from fertilisers were the largest contributors.

This is because, apart from our lungs, harmful compounds floating about in the air we breathe take their toll of our cardiovascular system.

The study only looked at outdoor air pollution – meaning the total number of deaths from air pollution worldwide is even higher than 3.3 million.

China and India are generally recognized as countries with major air pollution issues.

Examining the specific emission source of the pollutants was an important aspect of this study, researchers said. In the United Kingdom, almost half of all pollution-related deaths are tied to agricultural pollution, according to the study.

“It will be a win-win situation in both directions”, he said.