Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Strong link between air pollution and mortality

Air pollution still remains one of the biggest health issues in the world. The US scientists from the University of North Carolina have revealed in their latest study that outdoor air pollution takes more than two million lives each year.

This study also agrees that changing climate can exacerbate the effects of air pollution and increase death rates but this only accounts for a small proportion of current deaths thus having minimal overall impact.

Approximately around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by man-made increases in fine particulate matter. These air pollutants make their way into our lungs, causing many respiratory diseases as well as cancer.

This study once again confirmed that air pollution still remains among the most important environmental issues for human health. Many of these deaths are estimated to occur in East Asia and South Asia, where population is high and air pollution is severe, though air pollution is also taking its victims in other parts of the world.

The researchers also studied the connection between the climate change and air quality and have come to conclusion that there is a connection in many ways, possibly leading to local increases or decreases in air pollution.

They said that "temperature and humidity can change the reaction rates which determine the formation or lifetime of a pollutant, and rainfall can determine the time that pollutants can accumulate. "

The results of this latest study were pretty comparable to previous studies that have analyzed air pollution and mortality.

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