How can India monitor air pollution-related illnesses effectively? | Explained  Premium

Which illnesses are currently attributed to air pollution? How does Maharashtra propose to monitor air pollution-related illnesses? How can this data help shape climate action plans? The Hindu explores.

The story so far: For a brief period in October, Mumbai’s air quality matched the stifling haze that covered the national capital, where people complained of burning eyes, choking and troubled breathing. The Air Quality Index (AQI) across different parts of Maharashtra turned from orange (“poor”) to red (“very poor”), crossing the 300 mark. Maharashtra’s health department this week, in its first communique since residents complained of the ‘toxic’ air, introduced a ‘Health Action Plan.’ The civic body will monitor how elevated AQI levels affect pollution-related illnesses across 17 regions. Districts will strengthen surveillance programs to track, how many cardiac, respiratory and other such conditions were reported in a spot with a high AQI.

Three of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in India right now, says Swiss group IQAir. India is also witnessing multiple health alarm bells go off at once — cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases have been called ‘ticking time bombs’, as non-communicable diseases pose a health and economic burden. The 2020 State of Global Air termed air pollution the ‘biggest health risk in India,’ as indoor and outdoor air pollution in 2019 contributed to more than 16.7 lakh deaths linked to stroke, heart attack, diabetes, lung cancer, chronic lung diseases and neonatal diseases.

Weaving health in climate action plans helps plot local patterns of diseases related to air pollution, says Dr. Pallavi Pant, who leads the Health Effects Institute’s Global Health programme; the data can piece together a geographic and epidemiological picture of communities most exposed to bad air, helping to reduce climate inequalities in the long run.

Research has documented the health risks of particle pollution, a common air pollutant generated by the burning of fossil fuels. Two studies published in international journals last week linked type 2 diabetes incidents with “long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5” in Delhi and Chennai. Air pollution also inflames the risk of obesity, asthma, and cardiovascular disease; people are also vulnerable to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as bad air impacts cognitive ability. Pollution could trigger lung cancer in non-smokers, too, one study found.

The fine PM2.5 particles (about 30 times smaller than a human hair) travel into the respiratory tract, settle into the lungs and can even enter the bloodstream, triggering immediate and chronic concerns. PM2.5, and its slightly bigger cousin PM10, may both cause irritation in the eye, nose, and throat, along with breathlessness, headaches, coughing and sneezing. In the long run, chronic exposure to PM2.5 could be fatal, as the particulate matter affects every organ in the body and exacerbates underlying conditions. PM 2.5 concentrations originating from fossil fuels in the ambient air caused at least 25 lakh premature deaths in India five years ago, one report found. Children and adolescents are most vulnerable: more than one lakh infants in India died due to air pollution within one month of being born in 2019.

Despite proven risks, “climate action plans are not adequately taking into account the health effects of air pollution,” Dr. Pant says.

An Indian Express investigation revealed that Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had failed to issue, and did not have, health advisories for people despite a growing trend of poor air quality. “Mumbai observed 66 poor and very poor air quality days as compared to just 28 in the past three years’ average,” Professor Gufran Baig of theNational Institute of Advanced Studies (IISc, Bengaluru) observed in a report. A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on November 1 also took suo moto cognizance of Mumbai’s deteriorating air quality. The National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) in its 2022 advisory urged States to coordinate with the “concerned departments” to “finalise an action plan to address air pollution-related illnesses”; such an action plan would be activated “during higher AQI levels.”