In the United States, air pollution could have killed 30,000 people in one year: study

July 24, 2019 – 12:51 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – More than 30,000 deaths in the United States in a single year may have been caused by air pollutionCNN quotes a study released on Tuesday, July 23.

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 most recent 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.