NEW DELHI: A comprehensive analysis of air pollution’s global impact on newborns finds that outdoor and household particulate matter pollution contributed to the deaths of more than 116,000 Indian infants in their first month of life in 2019, according to a new global study, State of Global Air 2020 (SoGA).
More than half of these deaths were associated with outdoor PM 2.5 and others were linked to use of solid fuels such as charcoal, wood, and animal dung for cooking.
Long-term exposure to outdoor and household air pollution contributed to over 1.67 million annual deaths from stroke, heart attack, diabetes, lung cancer, chronic lung diseases, and neonatal diseases, in India in 2019.
For the youngest infants, most deaths were related to complications from low birth weight and preterm birth.
The report highlights the ongoing challenge of high outdoor air pollution — South Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal feature among the top ten countries with the highest PM 2.5 exposures in 2019; all of these countries experienced increases in outdoor PM2.5 levels between 2010 and 2019.
Use of solid fuels for cooking, however, presents a pattern of moderate success. Since 2010, more than 50 million fewer people have been exposed to household air pollution. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana Household LPG program and other schemes have helped to dramatically expand access to clean energy, especially for rural households.
More recently, the National Clean Air Programme has spurred action on major air pollution sources.
This report comes as COVID-19 — a disease for which people with heart and lung disease are particularly at risk of infection and death — has claimed more than 110,000 lives in India.
Although the full links between air pollution and COVID-19 are not yet known, there is clear evidence linking air pollution and increased heart and lung disease creating a growing concern that exposures to high levels of air pollution, during winter months in South Asian countries and East Asia, could exacerbate the effects of COVID-19.
“An infant’s health is critical to the future of every society, and this newest evidence suggests an especially high risk for infants born in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,” said Dan Greenbaum, President of HEI.
“Although there has been slow and steady reduction in household reliance on poor-quality fuels, the air pollution from these fuels continues to be a key factor in the deaths of these youngest infants,” he added.
Infants in the first month of life are already at a vulnerable stage. But a growing body of scientific evidence from multiple countries, including recent ICMR-supported studies in India, indicates that particulate air pollution exposure during pregnancy is linked to low birth weight and pre-term birth.
These latter conditions, both of which are associated with serious complications, already account for the vast majority of deaths in the neonatal period (455,000 in 2019).
The new analysis reported in the State of Global Air this year estimates that nearly 21 per cent of neonatal deaths from all causes are attributable to ambient and household air pollution.
“Addressing impacts of air pollution on adverse pregnancy outcomes and newborn health is really important for low- and middle-income countries, not only because of the high prevalence of low birth weight, preterm birth, and child growth deficits but because it allows the design of strategic interventions that can be directed at these vulnerable groups,” said Dr. Kalpana Balakrishnan, an air pollution and health expert who was not involved with the study.
The State of Global Air 2020 annual report and accompanying interactive website are designed and implemented by the Health Effects Institute in cooperation with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME2) at the University of Washington, and the University of British Columbia; its findings are based on the most recent Global Burden of Disease (GBD3) Study published in the international medical journal, The Lancet on October 15, 2020.