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Health officials and powerful lawmakers are not paying enough attention to the smallest particles of pollution. This inaction increases asthma suffering in children and “excessive” deaths for the most vulnerable, new studies show.
Nearly nine in ten people living in cities around the world – or about 2.5 billion people – are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution each year, according to a to study published in The Lancet Planetary Health. The results, in research conducted by George Washington University, show a number and density of fine particles that exceed World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines by seven times.
The study found that there were at least 1.8 million additional deaths in 2019 related to inhaling fine particles, which increases the risk of premature death from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including lung cancer and infections.
The study paid particular attention to cities with smaller populations, an under-examined parameter, say the authors, in addition to mega-cities of the world. The new research tracked pollution in a total of 13,000 cities.
Read: Study suggests even short-term exposure to air pollution harms older men’s thinking and memory
A second, related study finds that nearly 2 million cases of asthma in children are linked to traffic-related nitrogen dioxide air pollution, with two out of three cases recorded in cities.
Read: Biden’s EPA targets emissions with higher fuel standards
Air quality warnings are part of the growing investigation into the link between emissions, pollution and public health problems, in part because the devastation of COVID-19 show how costly and debilitating global respiratory problems are for economies and hospital systems.
Climate change, which is linked to the warming of the atmosphere from pollution, was seen last year as the “greatest threat” to global public health in an unprecedented collaboration between leading journals health, even as the grip of the coronavirus pandemic persisted.
Read: Climate change is “greatest threat” to global public health, according to 200 medical journals
“Avoiding the heavy public health burden caused by air pollution will require strategies that not only reduce emissions, but also improve overall public health to reduce vulnerability,” said Veronica Southerland, senior author on particulate pollution.
A 9-year-old London girl who died in 2013 from an asthma attack would be the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death. but this decision only appeared in 2020.
Asthma, the most common chronic disease in children, currently affects about 6.1 million American children under the age of 18, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Death in pediatric asthma remains rare, but this risk increases with age if left untreated.
Treating asthma costs people using the U.S. health care system about $ 50 billion a year in total. But the indirect costs also add up, for example for lost productivity in the workplace, to the tune of an additional $ 5.9 billion per year. These numbers are according to the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and cited by the American Lung Association.
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Other recent studies have looked at the concentration of polluted air in majority minority communities.
An international study led by researchers at the University of Washington and published in the journal Environmental health outlook found that while great strides have been made in reducing deadly pollutants in the air in the United States over the past decades, racial disparities remain. Research has also shown that race matters more than income in determining who lives with the most air pollution.
Read: Only 25 mega-cities produce more than half of the world’s urban greenhouse gas emissions
The study scientifically supports what many black and brown communities have been saying for decades, linking dirty air to proximity to busy roads and highways, as well as industrial parks.
In just one case, this one in a Chicago neighborhood, a single 145-foot chimney had brought 90 years of agony for some living nearby.
Little Village, or La Villita, has been a gateway to the Midwest for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans for generations. But 44% of the district is industrial, and the old Crawford coal-fired power plant, which houses this chimney, has caused an estimated 26 deaths, 350 emergency room visits and 1,800 asthma attacks each year, according to a 2002 study by the Harvard School of Public Health.
This chimney was to be demolished in 2020 after the factory closed in 2012, considered a victory for the militants of the district. But even its demolition took little account of the breathing quality of neighbors when its orchestrated collapse filled the air with dust in a community already reeling from the COVID-19 epidemic.
“If you live in a community that experiences the brunt of the bad air, this is nothing new to you; you already notice it, ”said Julian Marshall, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UW and lead author of this report.
The American Lung Association agrees. Last year, he reported that more than four in 10 people (135 million) in the United States live with polluted air. People of color were 61% more likely to live in a county with unhealthy air than whites, and three times more likely to live in a county that did not meet all three air quality levels, according to the American Lung Association report, who analyzed data for 2017-2019.
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