The work, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom and with the participation of a team from the Spanish National Research Council, highlights how stricter air quality standards could prevent thousands of deaths each year.
The authors analysed daily mortality, climate and air pollutants in 406 cities in 20 countries around the world between 1985 and 2015, including data from 48 provincial capitals in Spain.
The findings, based on nearly 50 million deaths, emphasize that more than 6,000 of them would have been prevented each year in these metropolises if stricter air quality standards, consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, had been implemented.
Ozone is a highly reactive gas commonly found in urban and suburban environments, which is formed when pollutants react to sunlight.
Recent work suggests that 80 percent of the world’s population in urban areas is exposed to air pollution levels above the WHO threshold (100 micrograms per cubic meter of ambient air).
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