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(CNN) – According to a study published Tuesday, more than 30,000 people have been affected by air pollution in the United States in a single year.
These deaths occurred even though nearly all US counties met federal standards for air quality. This suggests that stricter regulations are needed to protect human health, say the researchers.
"I think the major conclusion is that lowering the limits of air pollution could delay, in the United States, tens of thousands of deaths each year," said Majid Ezzati, senior author from the study and professor of environmental health at Imperial College. London.
The research, published today in the journal PLOS Medicine, estimated deaths for 2015, the last year for which data were available.
Researchers badyzed this year's air quality trends until 1999 in more than 750 monitoring stations spread across the American continent. They specifically examined particles, small, inhalable particles in the air that can enter the bloodstream.
The study compared these air quality data with publicly available information on deaths, looking for links between pollution and cardiorespiratory diseases, which are thought to be triggered or aggravated by dense particle air.
While particulates have declined over the past two decades, researchers have consistently linked the remaining pollution to deaths across the country. The team also took into account a variety of factors, including age, education, poverty, and smoking rates, which could have contributed to the deterioration of health in more polluted areas.
"By doing everything you can reasonably do to rule out other explanations, you still have a few tens of thousands dead," Ezzati said.
Researchers were confident in the link between air pollution and mortality rates, but found that the effect was stronger in low-income regions, in areas with a high proportion of black Americans, and in areas where high school graduates were graduates.
The researchers wrote that this "inequality in the burden of mortality" can be explained by the systematic difficulties faced by these demographic groups, including higher rates of pre-existing medical conditions.
The study also revealed that Los Angeles and some southern states, including Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, faced the heaviest life expectancy losses. due to particles.
But tightening the standards of air quality – which would improve the health of all – can prove difficult. Although the health benefits of significant pollution abatement in large metropolitan areas are "widely recognized," according to the study, "there is political resistance to actions that would further reduce pollutant levels."
For Ezzati, however, the science is clear. "If we make the current standards stricter," he said, "it is very likely that we will delay tens of thousands of deaths each year and people will live longer."
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