Air pollution is harmful to health and increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Scientists at the Center of Cardiology of the University Medical Center Mainz and the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry have calculated in a new study that air pollution reduces the life expectancy of people globally on average more than infectious diseases or other cardiovascular risk factors, such as smoking.
“Air pollution exceeds Malaria as a cause of
premature death by a factor of 19 and HIV/AIDS by a
factor of 9, and since the effects on health are so
enormous, and affect the population worldwide,
one could say that our results point to an air
pollution pandemic.”
- Prof. Dr. Jos Lelieveld
|FACT: Australia has the strictest air pollution control standards
2.9 YEARS
Air pollution statistically shorten the lives of people worldwide by an average of almost 3 years.
Almost 2/3 of deaths caused by air pollution, namely 5.5 million per year, are, according to the study’s findings, basically preventable, since the majority of polluted air is produced by the use of fossil fuels. The researchers also estimate that the average life expectancy worldwide would increase by just over a year. If emissions from the use of fossil fuels were to be eliminated.
Last year, researchers from the University Medical Center Mainz and the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry published a similar study on the consequences of air pollution in Europe. According to the study, almost 800,000 Europeans die prematurely every year from diseases caused by air pollution. Pollution air shortens the life span of Europeans on average by more than two years.
