Air Pollution Kills Over Two Million People Each Year

Washington: Human-caused outdoor air pollution may be responsible for over two million deaths worldwide - a large number of them in South Asia and East Asia - each year, US researchers have said.

A study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, has estimated that around 470,000 people die each year because of human-caused increase in ozone, Xinhua reported.

It also estimated that around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by human-caused increases in fine particulate matter, tiny particles suspended in the air that can penetrate deep into the lungs, causing cancer and other respiratory disease.

"Our estimates make outdoor air pollution among the most important environmental risk factors for health," co-author of the study, Jason West, from the University of North Carolina, said in a statement.

"Many of these deaths are estimated to occur in East Asia and South Asia, where population is high and air pollution is severe."

In the study, the researchers simulated the concentrations of ozone and fine particulate matter in 1850, when the industrial era began, and in the year 2000.

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