Why in news?
India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative recently released the estimates of reduction in life expectancy associated with air pollution.
What is the initiative?
- The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative was launched in 2015.
- The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative is a venture of the
- Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
- Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
- This comes in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, along with experts and stakeholders associated with over 100 Indian institutions.
- The Initiative makes assessment of the diseases causing the most premature deaths and ill-health in each state of the country.
- The data are analysed using the standardised methods of the Global Burden of Disease Study.
What are the key findings?
- India, with 18% of the world’s population, has a high 26% of the global premature deaths and disease burden by air pollution.
- Moreover, one in eight deaths in India was attributable to air pollution in 2017.
- This makes pollution a leading risk factor for death.
- The estimate found that 12.4 lakh deaths in India in 2017 were due to air pollution.
- This included 6.7 lakh deaths due to outdoor particulate matter air pollution and 4.8 lakh deaths due to household air pollution.
- Over half of the deaths due to air pollution were in persons less than 70 years of age.
- In 2017, 77% population of India was exposed to ambient PM2.5 above the recommended limit by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
- The highest PM2.5 exposure level was in Delhi, followed by the other north Indian States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana.
- Effect - Contrary to the popular association of pollution with respiratory diseases, poor air is responsible for heart diseases as well.
- Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) is the sum of years of potential life lost due to premature mortality and the years of productive life lost due to disability.
- DALYs attributable to air pollution in India in 2017 for major non-communicable diseases were at least as high as those attributable to tobacco use.
- The average life expectancy in India would have been 1.7 years higher if the air pollution levels were less than the minimal level causing health loss.
- The highest increases in life expectancy would have been in the northern States of Rajasthan (2.5 years), Uttar Pradesh (2.2 years) and Haryana (2.1 years).
What does it call for?
- Air pollution needs much more than ad-hoc reactions such as bans, fines and shutting down of power stations.
- The variation between States in the exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution is evident with the study.
- This factor should thus be taken into account while planning policies to reduce exposure to pollution and its health impact.
- The study also reveals air pollution is a year-round phenomenon, particularly in north India.
- This causes health impacts far beyond respiratory illnesses, which calls for a holistic response.
- With obvious links between pollution control and public health, there has to be collaboration between the ministries of health and environment.
- Pollution control policies should include the combined expertise of public health professionals, transport sector specialists, environmentalists and urban planners.
Source: The Hindu, Indian Express
