More than 80 percent of the world’s city dwellers breathe poor quality air, increasing their risk of lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, a new WHO report warned yesterday.
Urban residents in poor countries are by far the worst affected, the WHO said, adding that nearly every city (98 percent) in low and middle-income countries has air that fails to meet the UN body’s standards.
That number falls to 56 percent of cities in wealthier countries.
“Urban air pollution continues to rise at an alarming rate, wreaking havoc on human health,” WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health director Maria Neira said in a statement.
The UN agency’s latest air pollution database reveals an overall deterioration of air in cities, and highlights the growing risk of serious health conditions that also include stroke and asthma. The report, which focused on outdoor rather than household air, compared data collected from 795 cities in 67 countries between 2008 and 2013.
Tracking the prevalence of harmful pollutants like sulfate and black carbon, the WHO found that air quality was generally improving in richer regions like Europe and North America, but worsening in developing regions, notably the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Overall, contaminants in outdoor air caused more than 3 million premature deaths a year, the UN body said.
The quality of air pollution data provided by individual countries varies considerably, and the WHO does not compile a ranking of the world’s most polluted cities.
However, in a sample of selected megacities with a population of more than 14 million, New Delhi was the most polluted, followed by Cairo and Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.
Crucially, key African centers like Nigerian megacity Lagos were excluded from the list because of the sparse availability of air quality data in many parts of the continent, the WHO said.
A sample of European data showed that Rome had slightly worse air than Berlin, followed by London and Madrid.
WHO Coordinator of Interventions for Healthy Environment Carlos Dora pointed to several key factors that determine the quality of a city’s air.
First was transportation, followed by energy inefficiency and waste management, Dora said.
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