Global standards for global health in a globalized economy!

Excerpt

The global health community is dedicated to end unnecessary, preventable and treatable inequities in the global health status (Koplan et al. 2009). Its research community provides the scientific evidence needed for policy making toward this goal. An overwhelming global scientific literature leaves no doubts: anthropogenic air pollution is one of the major causes of morbidities and premature death on the globe, with 7 million deaths attributable to indoor and/or outdoor air pollution; this risk factor ranks third after high blood pressure—which, in part, is also a consequence of air pollution—and smoking (WHO 2014; Fuks et al. 2014). Using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) website (GBD 2010) the years of lives lost (YLL) due to air pollution—defined as the sum of household pollution, ambient air pollution, and ozone—add up to ~174 Million YLL every year. This environmental factor ranks second after the 200 Mio YLL attributed to dietary risks. It is followed by the impact of high blood pressure (167 Mio YLL) and smoking (138 Mio YLL). The contribution of air pollution is the sum of ~100 Mio YLL attributed to household air pollution due to biomass combustion and 74 Mio YYL due to ambient air pollution. The latter is very similar to the global 76 Mio YYL attributed to malaria, which is still the fifth-ranked disease after ischemic heart diseases, lower respiratory diseases, stroke, and diarrheal diseases (Wang et al. 2012). Whereas air pollution research has been primarily driven by projects conducted in wealthier Western countries, studies emerging from low and middle income countries not only confirm adverse findings in general terms but show that air pollution is much worse in those countries (Brauer et al. 2012). …