• In 2021, 390,000 people died in Europe as a result of the polluted air we breathe: this is according to a report by the European Environment Agency.
• For the first time, the report also estimates the burden of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone on the onset of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes mellitus.
• According to the report, across the entire EU approximately 150,000 years of life were lost due to smog, and an equal number were spent in conditions of illness.

Air pollution is the most significant environmental risk factor for health in Europe, and contributes to the death of almost 390,000 people a year in countries that are geographically part of Europe (320,000 of whom in the EU), caused in particular by respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) presents estimates for 2021 of the damage to human health caused by three main air pollutants: fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. It essentially confirms all the alarming data already in the possession of the scientific and international community. But for the first time the report also presents an estimate of the impacts associated with specific diseases to which air pollution contributes, as concentrations remain constantly above the levels set by the World Health Organization: a kind of burden of each air pollutant associated with disease.

Deaths, and also disease: the burden of pollution

EU EnvironmentAgency @EUEnvironment

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253,000 deaths could have been avoided in the EU, in 2021, if the fine particulate matter #pollution had met WHO recommendations. Find out more from our briefing, published today: eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/ne…

♥ 28💬 2 24 nov 2023 · Apri su X →

The premise, the report underlines, is that these concentrations of air pollutants in 2021 remained well above the levels recommended by the WHO in its air quality guidelines: according to a recently published study by the Guardian, 98 per cent of Europeans breathe air polluted beyond the danger threshold. The European Union has committed to reducing thresholds further, but only from 2035 onwards. And yet, the European Environment Agency now explains, reducing air pollution to these reference levels would prevent a significant number of deaths attributable to it. In particular, across Europe alone, understood as a geographical continent (thus including countries not part of the European Union), the estimated deaths in 2021 were:

• 293,000 (253,000 in the EU) due to exposure to fine particles (PM2.5);
• 69,000 (52,000 in the EU) due to exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2);
• 27,000 (22,000) due to short-term exposure to ozone (O3)

Progress is being made, but it is not enough

Between 2005 and 2021, the number of deaths attributable to PM2.5, fine particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres, fell by 41 per cent in the European Union, which has set itself the target of reducing them by 55 per cent by 2035. As mentioned, however, the novelty of the report is that it does not limit itself to counting the number of deaths, but also takes into account the onset of pathologies linked to smog. With regard to specific diseases, the greatest damage to human health is caused by ischaemic heart disease in the case of PM2.5 and diabetes mellitus in the case of NO2. For each specific disease linked to air pollution, the relative contribution to poor health varies significantly between morbidity (that is, how much pollution contributes to the onset of the disease) and mortality (the likelihood, instead, that pollution contributes to the progression of the disease to death). For example, mortality is by far the dominant contribution for ischaemic heart disease and lung cancer, whereas for asthma it is morbidity. This, the Environment Agency report explains, highlights the importance of also considering morbidity in order to avoid underestimating the damage to human health.

Particularly alarming are the figures relating to Italy. We already know that certain regions, in particular the Po Valley, are among the most polluted in Europe, but the EEA data are even more clear-cut: in 2021 in our country an estimated 46,800 deaths were attributed to PM2.5 (second only to Poland), 11,000 to nitrogen dioxide (first place, with Germany close behind but below the 10,000 threshold) and 5,100 due to short-term exposure to ozone (first again, by some margin).

Years lost or spent in illness

"When people get lung cancer, they normally die very quickly," said Alberto González Ortiz, an air pollution researcher at the EEA and the report's author. "For other diseases — asthma in particular, but also diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — there is also an important contribution from this state of living with the disease." A particularly disturbing and significant finding is that, with regard to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caused by PM2.5 pollution in 2021, the EEA estimated that across the entire EU approximately 150,000 years of life were lost and approximately the same number of years were spent in illness rather than in good health.

EU Environment @EU_ENV

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🇪🇺Commissioner @VSinkevicius at #CleanAirEU Forum:

@WHO reminds us that no level is safe for #AirPollution - it has a huge toll on our health, environment & economy

With the #EUGreenDeal & #ZeroPollution Action Plan, we want to achieve clean air for all: europa.eu/!Vnpk3P

♥ 31 24 nov 2023 · Apri su X →

The European Union has recently adopted a proposal for a new air quality directive, with the aim of aligning air quality standards with the updated WHO recommendations. To date, however, a paradox persists regarding PM2.5, arising from the fact that the WHO and the European Union set different limits: for the World Health Organization the limit should be 5 micrograms per cubic metre of air; the European Parliament voted in mid-September to align with the new standards, but only from 2035 onwards. And incidentally, the Italian situation is different still, given that Italy adheres to the still-current EU provisions, which stand at as much as 25 micrograms, with no provision for changes at present. "The good news is that clean air policy works and our air quality is improving," said European Commissioner for the Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius. He acknowledged, however, that "we need to do even better and reduce pollution levels further."