Air_Pollution

Air Pollution Fact Sheet N° 187Revised September 2000AIR POLLUTIONincluding WHO's 1999 Guidelines for Air Pollution ControlExposure to air pollution is as old as the use of fire by human beingsAir pollution, both indoors and outdoors, is a major environmental health problem affecting developed and developing counties alike. It comes from sources of dust, gases and smoke, and is generated mainly by human activities but also naturally. When inhaled, air pollutants affect the lung and respiratory tract but can also be taken up and transported by the blood stream throughout the body. Through deposition in the environment, air pollutants can also contaminate food and water. Health impactEvery year millions of people die or suffer serious health effects from air pollution: mainly respiratory diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer of the lung.o An estimated 3 million people die each year because of air pollution (see Figures for breakdown); this figure represents about 5% of the total 55 million deaths that occur annually in the world. It is possible, because of uncertainty in the estimates, that the actual death toll is anywhere between 1.4 and 6 million annually. o Many studies consistently show the direct link between mortality rates and daily ambient concentrations air, pollution, health, pollutants, respiratory, people, particulate, matter, countries, concentrations, indoor, ambient, suspended, quality, pollutant, million, information, guidelines, exposure, developing, cities, set, programme, mortality, industrial, environmental, between, year, world, who's, values, sources, populations, nitrogen, human, guideline, effects, economic, deaths, been, value, traffic, source, social, smoke, preventable, oxides, nox, monoxide, major