One in eight deaths in India due to air pollution: ICMR.

According to the report, alarmingly, around 77% of India’s population is exposed to outdoor air pollution levels above the National Ambient Air Quality Standards safe limit, with the northern states having particularly high levels.

One out of every eight deaths in India was attributable to air pollution in 2017, which now contributes to more disease burden in the country than tobacco consumption, revealed a report released by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday.

The first comprehensive estimates of death, disease burden and life expectancy reduction associated with air pollution in each state of India were collated under the India State Level Disease Burden Initiative. This is a joint initiative of the ICMR, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in collaboration with the ministry of health and family welfare. These research findings are also published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

According to the report, alarmingly, around 77% of India’s population is exposed to outdoor air pollution levels above the National Ambient Air Quality Standards safe limit, with the northern states having particularly high levels.

In 2017, the mean ambient particulate matter PM2.5 annual exposure of 90 μg/m3 was one of the highest in the world. The highest PM2.5 exposure level was in Delhi, followed by the other north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana. The report highlighted that 12.4 lakh deaths in India in 2017 were due to air pollution, which included 6.7 lakh deaths due to outdoor particulate matter air pollution and 4.8 lakh deaths due to household air pollution, the report said.

The average life expectancy in India would have been 1.7 years higher if the air pollution level were less than the minimal level causing health loss, with the highest increases in the northern states of Rajasthan (2.5 years), Uttar Pradesh (2.2 years), and Haryana (2.1 years), it said.

“The upsurge in respiratory problems in the winter months with peak air pollution is well known, but what is now also becoming better understood is that air pollution is a year-round phenomenon, particularly in north India which causes health impacts far beyond the seasonal rise of respiratory illnesses,” said Randeep Guleria, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

“Air pollution is now the leading risk factor for chronic obstructive lung disease in India, and a major contributor to pneumonia and lung cancer. With 18% of the global population, India suffered 26% of premature mortality and health loss attributable to air pollution globally,” Guleria said.

More so, over half of the deaths due to air pollution were in persons less than 70 years of age. Air pollution now contributes to more disease burden in India than tobacco use, primarily through causing lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive lung disease, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and lung cancer, the report said.

“We are undertaking a number of initiatives for experts to convene in order to develop strategies that would increase awareness among communities on what each one of us could do to reduce the adverse impact of air pollution on health, which would benefit from the state-specific findings reported by this study,” S Venkatesh, director-general of health services, Union health ministry, said. (Source:livemint)