Air pollution has become the world’s single biggest environmental health risk. According to WHO it is linked to around 7 million death or nearly one in eight death in 2012. The new figures are more double previous estimates and suggest that outdoor pollution from traffic fumes and coal-burning, and indoor pollution from wood and coal stoves, kill more people than smoking, road death and diabetes combines.
The document is WHO’s Air Quality Guidelines Global Update 2005. These Guidelines offer guidance to policy-makers on reducing the effects on health of air pollution for the four most common air pollutants – particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Also, issues affecting the use of the guidelines in risk assessment and policy development.
This document contains Part (1) Application of air quality guidelines for policy development and risk reduction; Part (2) Risk assessment of selected pollutants (Particulate matter, Ozone, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulfur dioxide).