Abstract

This editorial highlights the severe public health crisis caused by pollution, with a specific focus on New Delhi, India, where the Air Quality Index (AQI) frequently surpasses hazardous levels. Pollution has surpassed traditional risk factors such as smoking as a principal health hazard, significantly curtailing life expectancy and increasing the incidence of diseases including cardiovascular disorders, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The article calls for immediate revisions to public health protocols and calls for international efforts to address this widespread environmental menace.

Keywords:

Air pollution, public health crisis, cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, COPD, environmental health

References

AQLI study 2023. Available from: https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/reports/. Accessed on 23 December 2023.

EPA. Particle Pollution and Respiratory Effects. Available from: https://www.epa.gov/pmcourse/particle-pollution-and-respiratory-effects. Accessed on 23 December 2023.

Bevan GH, Al-Kindi SG, Brook R, Rajagopalan S. Ambient Air Pollution and Atherosclerosis: Recent Updates. Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2021;23(10):63.

Huang Y, Zhu M, Ji M, Fan J, Xie J, Wei X, et al. Air Pollution, Genetic Factors, and the Risk of Lung Cancer: A Prospective Study in the UK Biobank. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2021;204(7):817-825. doi: 10.1164/rccm.202011-4063OC. Erratum in: Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2022;205(10):1254. PMID: 34252012.

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How to Cite

Mehta, S., & Sethi, Y. (2024). Pollution: the evolving public health apocalypse . The Evidence, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.61505/evidence.2024.2.4.87

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Sameer Mehta, Yashendra Sethi

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Copyright© by the author(s). Published by the Evidence Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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