Deaths and illness due to air pollution caused 1.4% GDP loss in 2019: Study

As many as 1.67 million people died in 2019 because of diseases caused by air pollution, accounting for 17.8 per cent of the total deaths in the country, says a new study published in the medical journal Lancet.

According to The India State-level Disease Burden Initiative (ISLDBI) findings on the health and economic impact of air pollution, the economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths and diseases attributable to air pollution was nearly 1.4 per cent of the GDP in 2019, which amounts to $36.8 billion.

“The economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths attributable to air pollution in India in 2019 was $28.8 billion and from morbidity attributable to air pollution was $8.0 billion,” the study suggested.

According to the findings, the economic loss due to air pollution as a percentage of the state GDP was higher in the northern and central India states, with the highest in Uttar Pradesh (2.2 per cent of GDP) and Bihar (2 per cent of GDP).

The finding s further stated that death rate due to household pollution decreased by 64.2 per cent from 1990-2019 whereas the death rate due to outdoor ambient particulate matter pollution increased by 115 per cent during the same period and that due to ambient ozone pollution increased by 139.2 per cent.