The World Health Organization (WHO) has published its second report on the disease burden from environmental risks, highlighting once again how pollution affects dramatically the quality and life expectancy of all of us.
Every year the pollution kills 12.6 million people. The environmental risk factors (air, water, soil pollution, chemical exposures, climate change, ultraviolet radiation) contribute to more than one hundred diseases and injuries and cause 1 death on 4 of total deaths. Topped the most frequent causes of deaths from pollution guilt are stroke and heart disease.
People most at risk are children and adults / elderly. Every year, the death of 1.7 million children younger than 5 years, and 4.9 million adults aged 50 to 75 could be prevented through better environmental management.
The most affected regions are Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. At the global level are the countries with low and middle income South-East Asia and the Western Pacific the most affected by death from pollution with a total of 7.3 million deaths. The following are the African countries with 2.2 million deaths, Europe with 1.4 million, the countries of Eastern Mediterranean with 854mila dead and, finally, the two Americas with 847 thousand deaths.
To learn more read the report "Preventing disease through healthy environments. A global assessment of the burden of the disease from environmental risks".