The Health Benefit Assessment Dashboard launched by Climate Trends and IIT Delhi reaffirmed that achieving the 2024 National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) target of reducing 30 percent PM2.5 levels can help decrease the nationwide disease prevalence to 3.09% from the national average of 4.87% as per the 5th National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data
By Salam Rajesh
Achieving 30 percent clean air targets can reduce nationwide disease prevalence by almost a third, according to a health dashboard launched by Delhi-based Climate Trends and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, on the 30th of last month.
The Health Benefit Assessment Dashboard launched by Climate Trends and IIT Delhi reaffirmed that achieving the 2024 National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) target of reducing 30 percent PM2.5 levels can help decrease the nationwide disease prevalence to 3.09% from the national average of 4.87% as per the 5th National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data.
The Dashboard, a first of its kind tool, is based on the indigenous NFHS-5 data set across 641 Indian districts, designed to demonstrate associations between PM2.5 air pollution levels and diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), anemia, and diabetes among women of reproductive age between 15 and 49; as well as anemia, low birth weight, and lower respiratory infections among children under the age of 5.
The decline in the prevalence of lower respiratory infections, low birth weight and anemia are most pronounced among children in regions with high baseline prevalence of severe air pollution, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the eastern states.
The clean air scenario was modeled assuming 30 percent reduction in PM2.5 concentrations based on NCAP’s 2024 target, with the aim of helping policymakers and researchers with real-world health impact data as the severe air pollution months approach.
The Health Dashboard has been designed using Census 2011 district boundaries, taking district level prevalence rates for each morbidity indicator and PM2.5 values extracted from IIT Delhi’s SAANS satellite data.
Reflecting on the dashboard, Climate Trends’ director Aarti Khosla observed that the central concern for air quality mitigation is health. She asserted that air quality has became more of a scientific issue and is increasingly linked with aspects like climate change, which is why studies on epidemiological evidence and research conducted in India are important for establishing clear links between air quality and public health.
The health co-benefits of clean air are observed to be greatest in densely populated, high-burden states in the north and eastern parts of the country. Among women of reproductive age, the prevalence of diabetes is currently 1.7%, which could drop to 1.4% if the PM2.5 reduction targets were met, according to Khosla.
Prof Sagnik Dey, Chair Professor in Policy Studies, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, said his institute partnered with Climate Trends to help in using science to create a strong health-centric narrative.
Speaking at the launch, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, noted that, “One thing that is very critical but often overlooked is the role of indoor air pollution. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has gone a long way and has been an amazing change in terms of the ownership of LPG connections”.
“Today, almost every household in India owns an LPG connection. But the fact remains that many families are still using biomass for cooking and sometimes for heating in the winter months. This significantly contributes to indoor air pollution, apart from being a direct risk to women and children. So, there is a very specific gender equity issue with indoor air pollution, in addition to the fact that it contributes anywhere between 30 to 60 percent of ambient air pollution”, she added.
“We need to look at air pollution as a national problem. We need a national-level body that makes policy and uses data from all parts of India. Political will and setting up structures at a high level will change everything. We need better legislative action, which would then translate into policies, and finally into implementation”.
“My recommendation would be to think about creating an Environmental Health Regulatory Agency for India, one that looks at health and air pollution data, as well as other environmental health risks, and makes science-based recommendations and policies, with the authority to implement and enforce them”, Swaminathan stressed.
Dr Virinder Sharma, Technical Member, Commission for Air Quality Management in Delhi NCR (CAQM) noted that “The science is quite robust. However, the translation of evidence into public action and policy is often weak. Which means that all the best data accumulated – from the society group and many others working on this – without clear communication does not yield benefits. We need institutional, governance, and legal mechanisms and finally relook at national air quality standards as recent evidences shows huge impact of air pollution on health”.
“We need to revisit NCAP and revamp the target. It is very unfortunate that air quality has yet not made it to global forums. India should take the leadership role to address air quality at global forums because we are very well equipped and have cross border collaboration with neighboring countries. Technology transfer could give us solutions at a faster pace. At present, inter-state coordination is weak and needs to be strengthened”, he added.
Dr Anand Krishnan, Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, observed that the way forward is national prioritization, and breaking down air pollution into smaller, manageable parts, also noting that the issue is too big for individuals or governments to solve all at once.
“Within the scientific community, we have been focused on attribution for too long. Scientists must move toward interventions. We are not focusing enough on policy or behavior change. We remain too focused on attribution. We must shift the focus to community-level and government-level changes”, he stressed.
Krishnan further noted that, “Although everyone agrees that air pollution is a problem, action does not follow. We have not created the critical mass of people necessary for collective action. This is an across-the-board failure. The community is ready to change but without providing an alternate solution, criminalizing some actions will not be accepted”.
“We need to start at the local level and work upward. One of the simplest local priorities India should tackle is solid waste management. These are issues municipalities can address, without needing central intervention. The bigger issue is that we don’t do multi-sectoral action well. It’s the same with NCDs – we have multi-sectoral action plans and committees, but they don’t meet or produce tangible outputs. For some reason, we don’t collaborate well”, he added.
Climate Trends is a research-based consulting and capacity building initiative that aims to bring greater focus on issues of environment, climate change and sustainable development.