Fine particles contributed to around 239,000 deaths in Europe, but the burden was felt more deeply in some parts of the continent than others.
ADVERTISEMENTAir pollution is a deadly threat to public health, but some parts of Europe are at much greater risk than others.
Air pollution is linked to lung cancer, heart and respiratory disease, stroke, poor birth outcomes and more.
It is especially dangerous for older people, causing about 4 percent of all deaths among adults age 65 and older.
In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated its air quality guidelines, lowering the recommended threshold for the annual concentration of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles (PM2.5) such as dust, smoke and soot from exhaust gases.
In December, more strictly air quality rules entered into force, which aim to bring the European Union closer to WHO standards by 2030 and oblige member states to monitor pollutants such as fine particles, black carbon and ammonia.
The plan is “one of the biggest public health interventions for a generation,” Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of the Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, told Euronews Health.
Overall, exposure to PM2.5 caused around 239,000 premature deaths in Europe in 2021, while another 48,000 people died as a result of exposure to nitrogen dioxide, according to the European Environment Agency.
Currently, all EU countries report levels of nitrogen dioxide above WHO recommended levels, but some are more severely affected by air pollution than others.
North Macedonia suffers the most deaths from pollution, followed by Serbia. Neighboring Albania, Bulgaria and Montenegro also score too high, according to a recent report by the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“The biggest divide in Europe that we see is east and west [and this] it is very much in line with the GDP and socio-economic background of the two regions”, Zorana Jovanović Andersen, professor of environmental epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen and member of the Committee on Environment and Health of the European Respiratory Society, told Euronews Health.
Nieuwenhuijsen’s city-level research highlights the different challenges facing different parts of Europe.
Northern Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic are experiencing elevated death rates from PM2.5, which is mainly caused by residential sources, such as coal burning for heating homes and the agricultural sector.
Meanwhile, mortality from NO2 – which is mainly caused by car traffic and the industrial sector – was highest in the major cities and capitals of western and southern Europe.
“The need to regulate air pollution”
Some countries are taking steps to reduce pollution levels, including Denmark, which could become the first country in the world introduce a carbon tax on livestock farming in 2030.
Meanwhile, an updated EU directive gives citizens with pollution-related health problems the right to sue their government if it fails to comply with EU air quality rules.
ADVERTISEMENTHowever, a report by the OECD and the European Commission states that while the EU is on track to cut PM2.5-related deaths by 55 percent by 2030, environmental risk factors such as air pollution and climate change are “growing threats to public health”.
That’s because scientists now know more about the health effects of air pollution, and it appears to pose a risk to people at lower levels than previously recognized, Nieuwenhuijsen and Andersen say.
“Even if you significantly reduce the level of air pollution, you may not always reduce the health impact that much,” Nieuvenhuijsen said.
Air pollution may be the biggest threat to environmental health facing Europe, but it tends to overlap with other factors, such as lack of green areasnoise pollution, i extreme heat, all this has an impact on people’s health.
ADVERTISEMENTWith some of these challenges more difficult to solve — like climate change — Andersen said there’s a stronger case for limiting air pollution in the name of protecting health.
“We have reduced air pollution, we know that many countries are leading the way,” Andersen said.
“New challenges are coming, so we have to regulate air pollution – an old problem.
