The global life expectancy has been reduced by 2.2 years by particulate air pollution compared to a hypothetical world that meets international health guidelines, the University of Chicago’s 2022 Air Quality Life Index shows.
The new report has found that worldwide exposure to particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM 2.5), the so-called fine particulate matter, has an impact on par with that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water.
Michael Greenstone, index co-creator and an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, said in a statement that if Martians came to Earth and sprayed a substance that cuts the average person more than two years of his life expectancy, it would be a global emergency.
In this situation, as Greenstone added, we are the ones spraying the substance (pollution) whose life expectancy effect amounts to six times that of HIV/AIDS and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism.
The index authors noted that PM 2.5 poses such a threat that the World Health Organization recently decreased the safe level of exposure from 10 micrograms to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.
Yet, as the researchers have stressed, the average PM 2.5 pollution remained largely unchanged despite the fact that the economy incurred significant losses during the first year of the COVID pandemic.
According to the report, the growing evidence that has emerged showing that even low air pollution levels can damage human health has forced the WHO to change its guidelines, bringing within the unsafe realm about 97.3% of the global population.
The researchers found that the worst impacts of PM 2.5 exposure are evident in South Asia, where – if countries maintain today’s high levels of pollution – the residents are projected to lose about five years of their lives on average.
The report also shows that about 92.8% of the US and 95.5% of Europe fail to meet the WHO’s new guidelines although strong enforcement measures have helped reduce particulate pollution in both regions.
If the revised WHO guideline is met, the life expectancy of the American people would improve on average by 2.5 months while the Europeans would get 7.3 months.
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