The world’s biggest cities and urban areas face some of the worst air quality and Dhaka stands fifth among the 10 most polluted cities, with an annual average exposure of 71.4 μg/m3 for PM2.5, whereas WHO Air Quality Guideline is 5 μg/m3 for PM2.5, according to a new report titled “Air Quality and Health in Cities”, published by the US-based research organization Health Effects Institute (HEI).
The new report by HEI’s State of Global Air Initiative, provides a comprehensive analysis of air pollution and global health effects for more than 7,000 cities around the world, focusing on two of the most harmful pollutants, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), read a press release issued on Wednesday.
Dhaka is also one of the cities with higher death rates (86 deaths/100,000 people) due to long-term exposure to PM2.5 than the global urban median (58 deaths/100,000 people).
The report highlighted that long-term exposure to PM2.5 pollution is associated with illness and early death from a variety of diseases, including ischemic heart disease, lung cancer, COPD, pneumonia, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and adverse birth outcomes.
The report found that among the 20 cities with the largest increase in PM2.5-attributable death rates from 2010 to 2019 are located in Southeast Asia, said the release.
In 2019, 1.7 million deaths linked to PM2.5 exposure occurred in the 7,239 cities included in the analysis, with cities in Asia, Africa, and Eastern and Central Europe seeing the greatest health impacts.
By the year 2050, as much as 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. This rapid urbanization places the world’s top cities at the forefront of the battle to reduce the health effects of air pollution, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Using data from 2010 to 2019, the report found that global patterns for exposures to the two key air pollutants are different. While exposures to fine particulate or PM2.5 pollution tend to be higher in cities located in low- and middle-income countries, exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is high across cities in high-income as well as low- and middle-income countries.
