According to a study published in “The Lancet Planetary Health”, air, water and soil pollutants cause three times more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Developing countries are particularly concerned.
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Nine million people die every year in the world because of pollution, because they are exposed to air, water or soils contaminated by toxic substances. One in six deaths (16 %) is thus attributable to pollution, making it the number one environmental risk factor in terms of premature diseases and deaths: it is three times more than the cumulative deaths of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. These figures come from a study published on Wednesday May 18 in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health. Fruit of the collaboration of around thirty international researchers within the “pollution and health” commission of Lancet, it tries to assess the overall impact of all forms of pollution. It is only the second edition of this report after a first publication in 2017.
This estimate is based on the analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease (“World Charge of Diseases”), an international research program in epidemiology piloted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Seattle, United States ), in which some 7,000 researchers collaborate. The pioneer study of 2017 took into account the data for the year 2015; That of 2022 concerns 2019. First observation, with nine million, the number of premature deaths attributable to pollution remains stable between 2015 and 2019. “These data show that the situation has not improved and that pollution remains a global threat major, in particular for low -income countries, “concludes the Lancet commission.
Deaths attributable to the so -called old forms of pollution (use of coal to heat or cook, limited access to drinking water, etc.), linked to unsanitary living conditions, have certainly fell, in particular in Africa, since the beginning of the century. But these progress – due essentially to hygienist policies – are annihilated by the increase in deaths attributable to more “modern” forms of pollution (pollution with fine or chemical particles): with 6.3 million dead in 2019, they believed 7 % in four years and more than 66 % since 2000 (around 3.8 million). A degradation which is explained, according to the authors, by the cumulative effect of an industrialization with forced march, an uncontrolled urbanization and the demographic explosion.
The poor pay the heaviest price
Because if no region of the world is spared, it is the poor countries that pay the heaviest tribute: more than 90 % of deaths are concentrated in countries with low and medium income. South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.) is particularly affected. Air pollution (exterior and interior) is the first risk factor: it represents around 75 % of deaths. Exposure to fine particles and other nitrogen oxides is thus at the origin of 6.7 million premature deaths each year. An increasing figure (+ 200,000) compared to the estimate of the first study. An increased increase by that of victims of outdoor air pollution, the number of which jumped from 2.9 million to 4.5 million in the space of two decades.
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