CANADA — Fine pollution particles (often referred to as PM2.5) may be responsible for 1.5 million additional premature deaths around the globe each year, according to a study that found that low levels of air pollution are more dangerous than previously thought.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over 4.2 million people die prematurely each year due to long-term exposure to fine particulate outdoor air pollution.
A recent study by researchers at McGill University now suggests that the annual global death toll from low pollution levels may be significantly higher than previously thought.
They found that mortality risk was increased, even with very low exposure to PM2.5, which had not previously been recognized as deadly. These microscopic toxins cause a range of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as cancer.
“We found that outdoor PM2.5 may be responsible for as many as 1.5 million additional deaths around the globe each year because of effects at very low concentrations that were not previously appreciated,” said Scott Weichenthal, Associate Professor at McGill University in Canada and the lead author on the paper.
The latest study, published in the journal Science Advances, suggests that the annual global death toll from outdoor PM2.5 may be significantly higher than previously thought.
That is because the researchers found that mortality risk was increased even at very low levels of outdoor PM2.5, which had not previously been recognized as being potentially deadly.
The researchers combined health and mortality data from seven million Canadians collected over a twenty-five-year period with data on outdoor PM2.5 concentrations across the country.
Canada has low levels of outdoor PM2.5, making it an ideal location for research into the health effects of low concentrations.
Information collected in Canada was then used to update the lower end of the scale, which is used to describe how mortality risk changes with outdoor PM2.5 levels.
The results were able to show an improved understanding of how low air pollution levels affect society on a global scale.
Recently, the WHO set out ambitious new guidelines for annual average outdoor fine particulate air pollution, which cut its earlier recommendations in half, from concentrations of ten to concentrations of five micrograms (ug) per cubic meter.
The current United States Environmental Protection Agency standard of 12 (ug) per cubic meter is now more than double the value recommended by the WHO.
“One takeaway is that the global health benefits of meeting the new WHO guideline are likely much larger than previously assumed,” adds Weichenthal.
“The next steps are to stop focusing only on particle mass and start looking more closely at particle composition because some particles are likely more harmful than others. If we can gain a better understanding of this, it may allow us to be much more efficient in designing regulatory interventions to improve population health.“
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