Air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known effects on physical health.
The research was conducted in China, but is relevant across the world, with 95 percent of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average effect equivalent to having lost a year of the person’s education.
“Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge,” said Xi Chen (陳希) of the Yale School of Public Health in the US, who is a member of the research team. “But we know the effect is worse for the elderly, especially those over 64, and for men, and for those with low education. If we calculate [the loss] for those, it may be a few years of education.”
Previous research has found that air pollution harms cognitive performance in students, but this is the first to examine people of all ages and the difference between men and women.
“We usually make the most critical financial decisions in old age,” Chen said, adding that the damage in intelligence was worst for those older than 64.
“This report’s findings are extremely worrying,” said Rebecca Daniels of the UK-based public health charity Medact.
Air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths a year, but the harm to people’s mental abilities is less well-known. A recent study found that toxic air was linked to “extremely high mortality” in people with mental disorders and earlier work linked it to increased mental illness in children, while another analysis found those living near busy roads had an increased risk of dementia.
The new work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed language and arithmetic tests conducted as part of the China Family Panel Studies on 20,000 people across the nation from 2010 to 2014. The scientists compared the test results with records of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution.
They found that the longer people were exposed to dirty air, the bigger the damage to intelligence, with language ability more harmed than mathematical ability and men more harmed than women. The researchers said this might result from differences in how male and female brains work.
The effects of air pollution on cognition were important and his group had similar preliminary findings in their work, said Derrick Ho of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
“It is because high air pollution can potentially be associated with oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration of humans,” he said.
“There is no shortcut to solve this issue,” Chen said.
“Governments really need to take concrete measures to reduce air pollution. That may benefit human capital, which is one of the most important driving forces of economic growth,” he added.
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