NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, October 26, 2017

In 2015, about one in six of the deaths around the world were linked to pollution of some kind, a new report has found.

“Pollution is much more than an environmental challenge—it is a profound and pervasive threat that affects many aspects of human health and wellbeing,” Philip Landrigan, a global health researcher with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, says in a statement. The new report emerged from a commission Landrigan co-led for the medical journal The Lancet.

The commission spent two years compiling data from past reports of the World Health Organization and other scientific research bodies about various types of pollution and their impact on exposed populations in 130 countries, reports Brady Dennis for the Washington Post.

Photo courtesy of Shever.