prasad1
Active member
Who's more affected by toxic air: A young executive in New Delhi or a housewife in a Haryana village?
One might assume the executive is worse off---after all, Delhi has the world's worst air. Yet a village woman who cooks over a dung-fuelled chulha for several hours a day could be more exposed to hazardous pollutants than a Delhi office worker.
This distinction between ambient pollution levels and individual exposure lies at the heart of a new report from a Union health ministry committee that---correcting a historical focus on urban air pollution---highlights the importance of tackling pollution from the burning of dung and wood in village chulhas across India.
The report, made available on the health ministry's website this week, calls for an integrated approach to air pollution that focuses on "reducing exposures not emissions".
"All pollution is bad but, with the intention of eventually taking care of all of it, where do you focus your efforts first?" said Ambuj Sagar, committee co-chair and Vipula and Mahesh Chaturvedi Professor of Policy Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. "From a health standpoint, you prioritize reduction in areas and sources that most affect people directly."
Air pollution leads not only to respiratory illness but has also been linked to heart disease, stroke, cataracts and lung cancer. "Just as with tobacco smoking, which produces the same set of impacts, air pollution needs now to be considered within public health programs concerning both non- communicable and communicable diseases," the report says.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...as-polluted-as-India/articleshow/50505567.cms
One might assume the executive is worse off---after all, Delhi has the world's worst air. Yet a village woman who cooks over a dung-fuelled chulha for several hours a day could be more exposed to hazardous pollutants than a Delhi office worker.
This distinction between ambient pollution levels and individual exposure lies at the heart of a new report from a Union health ministry committee that---correcting a historical focus on urban air pollution---highlights the importance of tackling pollution from the burning of dung and wood in village chulhas across India.
The report, made available on the health ministry's website this week, calls for an integrated approach to air pollution that focuses on "reducing exposures not emissions".
"All pollution is bad but, with the intention of eventually taking care of all of it, where do you focus your efforts first?" said Ambuj Sagar, committee co-chair and Vipula and Mahesh Chaturvedi Professor of Policy Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. "From a health standpoint, you prioritize reduction in areas and sources that most affect people directly."
Air pollution leads not only to respiratory illness but has also been linked to heart disease, stroke, cataracts and lung cancer. "Just as with tobacco smoking, which produces the same set of impacts, air pollution needs now to be considered within public health programs concerning both non- communicable and communicable diseases," the report says.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...as-polluted-as-India/articleshow/50505567.cms
