Indoor Air Pollution ‘Largest Environmental Health Risk’
GENEVA—An estimated 7 million people died due to air pollution globally in 2012, with more than half of the deaths linked to indoor smoke from cook stoves, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO). Air pollution is now the “single largest environmental health risk,” the U.N. health agency stated in the report. The majority of the deaths associated with air pollution were heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Around 3 billion people in the world rely on coal, wood and open-air fires for household cooking, according to WHO’s estimates. In India, 63% of the population uses such solid fuels for cooking. These fuels produce harmful pollutants such as fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide.
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