More than 90 percent of people on the planet live in places where air pollution levels are dangerously high, and millions of people are dying as a result of the exposure, according to new research from the World Health Organization (WHO) released Tuesday.
Using an air quality model based on satellite data and other ground and air monitors in 3,000 locations, the WHO found (pdf) that fully 92 percent of people worldwide live in regions where the pollution exceeds the organization’s safety limits.
“To date, air pollution—both ambient (outdoor) and household (indoor)—is the biggest environmental risk to health, carrying responsibility for about one in every nine deaths annually,” the report states. “Air pollution continues to rise at an alarming rate, and affects economies and people’s quality of life; it is a public health emergency.”
The organization created an interactive map showing where in the world, both in rural and urban areas, the air is contaminated by toxins that can seep into the lungs and cause cardiovascular diseases, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer, among other illnesses.
The majority of those locations are in developing counties, largely in the regions of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, with “vulnerable populations” at a particularly high risk, the report states. More than six million people die every year due to exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution.
“Air pollution continues take a toll on the health of the most vulnerable populations—women, children and the older adults,” said WHO assistant director general Dr. Flavia Bustreo. “For people to be healthy, they must breathe clean air from their first breath to their last.”
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