Due to air pollution, the average life expectancy of people in Bangladesh is reduced by seven years
Bangladesh has become the most polluted country in the world. Due to living in polluted air, the average life expectancy of people in Bangladesh is decreasing by six years and eight months per year.
And even within Bangladesh, the air condition of each area is different. The city with the most polluted air is Gazipur. The life expectancy of the people of that industrial area closest to Dhaka is decreasing by eight years and three months due to air pollution.
These data have emerged in a global report on air pollution published by the University of Chicago in the United States.
The report has been prepared by calculating how much the average life expectancy of the inhabitants of any country in the world is decreasing due to air pollution. It has come out that the average life expectancy of all people worldwide is falling by two years and four months due to air pollution.
According to the report, air pollution in Bangladesh has increased by 63 percent compared to 1998. And it reduced the average life expectancy by two years and eight months. However, compared to 2020 and 2021, it has decreased by 2.2 percent.
Noting that China has shown the most success in controlling air pollution over the past decade, the report said the country has declared war on pollution.
It ensured data flow to prevent contamination and reduced the number of polluting industries. Various initiatives have been taken, including sprinkling water on the road. This has improved the country’s air quality by more than 42 percent.
According to the Department of Environment sources, the organization provides air quality information every two hours only for Dhaka city. And the information of other big cities of the country comes after a day.
As a result, citizens must wait to know an area’s air quality. As a result, there is less opportunity to decide what kind of preparations can be made there or whether to go there at all to avoid polluted air.
Most of the world’s international organizations and developed countries provide air quality data through apps. It has yet to start in Bangladesh.
However, various international organizations provide hourly air quality information for big cities in Bangladesh. Various organizations, including Switzerland-based Air Visual, provide this information regularly or directly. For this reason, experts believe that providing air quality information in Bangladesh needs to be more timely and reliable.
In this regard, the director of the air quality department of the environment department, Ziaul Haque, said, “We will be able to provide the air quality information of many places in the country, including the capital, on the website within the next month.”
“We are moving towards that capability. And within a year, I will present it through direct air quality information apps like international organizations,” he added.
According to the report, 16.48 million people in Bangladesh live in polluted air year-round, which exceeds the World Health Organization (WHO) standard of 5 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter.
There should be less particulate matter than PM-2.5. Even the Bangladesh government has set 15 per cubic meter of PM-2.5 as its standard.
Sylhet, the district with the cleanest air in Bangladesh, has more air pollution than this. In that district, fine particulate matter is also almost ten times more than the WHO standard. And 3.2 percent higher than Bangladesh’s standard.
The report compares air pollution with other causes of overall life expectancy worldwide. The biggest reductions in life expectancy are due to heart disease and circulatory problems.
In this, the average life expectancy of each resident of Bangladesh is decreasing by six years and eight months. Next is air pollution. Smoking reduces life expectancy by two years and one month child and maternal malnutrition by one year and four months.
The air quality in the big cities of Bangladesh is quite worse than in the villages. Seven crore 47 lakh people live here in big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong. The average life expectancy of the residents of these cities is decreasing by seven years and six months.
However, if the air quality is fixed following the guidelines of the World Health Organization, the average life expectancy of the people of Bangladesh can increase overall. In Dhaka, it is possible to increase the average life expectancy by eight years and one month. And in Chittagong, it can grow to 6 years and nine months. And the average life expectancy of the entire country may increase by five years and eight months.
