Polluted air is linked to more premature deaths than smoking, a group of scientists conclude in a recently published study.
Some 8.8 million deaths per year worldwide are caused by air polluted with particulate matter, according to a research team based in the German city of Mainz and led by air pollution researcher Jos Lelieveld and cardiologist Thomas Muenzel.
The results, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that every year an average of 120 people out of every 100,000 inhabitants around the world die prematurely from the consequences of polluted air.
This greatly outnumbers deaths attributed to smoking, which causes 7.2 million deaths annually worldwide, including passive smoking, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.
The researchers noted that while a person can decide not to smoke, they usually cannot avoid air pollution.
In Europe the number of premature deaths tied to pollution per 100,000 inhabitants is as high as 133, while a heavily industrialised and car-friendly country like Germany counts as many as 154 annual deaths, higher than in Poland, Italy or France, for example. – dpa
