Air pollution-related illness killed 464 children daily in India in 2021, says report

Air pollution in India was responsible for the deaths of 1,69,400 children under the age of five years in 2021, according to the State of Global Air 2024 report. This means that around 464 children died every day in India that year due to diseases caused by air pollution.

The report provided analysis of data for air quality and health impacts for countries around the world. It defined air pollution as a complex mixture including particles and different gases with sources and composition varying over space and time.

The report estimated the number of premature deaths by referring to the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2021 carried out by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The study is a collaboration of more than 10,000 international researchers that produces comparable global estimates of 88 environmental, behavioural, and dietary risk factors on health from 1990 to 2021.

Governments typically measure only a small subset as indicators of the different types of air pollution and major sources contributing to that pollution. These pollutants include particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide, and are known to harm our health and ecosystems.

Indicators like PM2.5, Nitrogen Dioxide, and ozone are used to quantify air pollution exposure in the Global...

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