Report: Outdoor Air Pollution Ranks 4th Among Health Risks in China

Outdoor air pollution ranks ninth among the top 20 global health risk burdens, and number 4 in China, according to a recent report by Global Burden of Disease (GBD2010) presented in late March at an international Workshop on the health impacts of air pollution in Beijing.

The report was a joint effort by 488 experts from 303 institutions of 50 countries all over the world. It showed that outdoor air pollution in the form of fine particles contributed annually to 3.2 million premature deaths worldwide, and 76 million years of healthy life lost. In China, this new GBD analysis estimates 1.2 million premature deaths and 25 million healthy years of life were lost in 2010.

"The analysis was based on evidence on adverse health effects of air pollution comprises over 400 epidemiologic studies in China and other parts of Asia since 1980,"said Aaron J Cohen, co-chair of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Ambient Air Pollution Expert Group. "In China, the health risk burden caused by outdoor air pollution increased by 33 percent from 1990 to 2010, and 20 percent of lung cancer was caused by it", he added.

Kan Haidong, a professor at the School of Public Health at Fudan University, said that strong evidence has proved that ambient air pollution is associated with adverse health effects in the Chinese population. He also suggested more efforts to reduce pollution and monitoring air quality and health indicators.