The story so far: Pollution continues to be the biggest environmental health hazard, resulting in millions of premature deaths globally every year. In 2019, nine million (90 lakhs) people died around the world due to pollution. To put it simply, pollution was responsible for every sixth death globally that year. In India, more than 23 lakh people died prematurely due to pollution in 2019. Of them, 73 per cent of deaths occurred due to air pollution, the largest number of such deaths globally,
The findings have been revealed in a recent report— ‘Pollution and health: a progress update’, published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal on May 17. The report, which is an update to The Lancet’s 2015 study, takes into account data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2019. The global toll has remained unchanged since the previous analysis, which the researchers say is reflective of the “little effort” countries have put to prioritise action against pollution.
