Global health impacts of ambient fine particulate pollution associated with climate variability
Steve Hung Lam Yim, Yuyan Li, Tao Huang, Jue Tao Lim, Harry F. Lee, Sanjay H. Chotirmall, Guang‐Hui Dong, John Abisheganaden, J.A. Wedzicha, Stephan C. Schuster, Benjamin P. Horton, J.J.Y. Sung
Abstract
Air pollution is a key global environmental problem raising human health concern. It is essential to comprehensively assess the long-term characteristics of air pollution and the resultant health impacts. We first assessed the global trends of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) during 1980–2020 using monthly global PM2.5 reanalysis, and evaluated their association with climate variability. We then estimated the PM2.5-attributable premature deaths using integrated exposure–response functions. Results show a significant positive increasing trend of ambient PM2.5 in the four decades due to increases in anthropogenic emissions. Ambient PM2.5 caused a total of ∼ 135 million premature deaths globally during the four decades. Occurrence of air pollution episodes was strongly associated with climate variability which are associated with up to 14 % increase in annual global PM2.5-attributable premature deaths.