Gurugram: As Delhi NCR gears up for winters ready to battle poor AQI’s Climate Trends and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The Dash board highlights How by achieving the 2024 National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) target of reducing 30% PM2.5 levels, can help decrease the nationwide disease prevalence to 3.09% from the national average of 4.87%. The Dashboard, a first-ever one of a kind tool, is based on indigenous 5th National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data set across 641 Indian districts. It has been been 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 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.
Dr. Virinder Sharma, Technical Member, Commission for Air Quality Management in Delhi NCR (CAQM) said, “One issue is that the numbers are shocking, but abstract. They are not connected with people directly. The impacts feel distant, like climate changesomething in the future, gradual, especially in terms of morbidity. People do not see the impacts immediately. There’s no “death certificate” for air pollution. Losses are happening—whether in Delhi NCR hospitals, workplaces, or through shortened lifespans—but the crisis is silent, invisible, and diffuse. It is easy to underestimate unless it is connected to people’s lived reality.”
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. Meanwhile, the decline in the prevalence of lower respiratory infections, low birth weight and anemia is most pronounced among children in regions with high baseline prevalence of severe air pollution, particularly the Indo-Gangetic
Plain and eastern states. The clean air scenario was modelled assuming a 30% reduction in PM2.5 concentrations based on NCAP’s 2024 target, to help policymakers and researchers with real-world health impact data as the severe air pollution months approach.
Aarti Khosla, Director, Climate Trends said, “The central concern for air quality mitigation should be public health. Over the last 10 years, as air quality became more of a scientific issue and increasingly linked with aspects like climate change, it has somewhat moved away from its social dimension as a public health concern primarily. I think bringing it back to where it belongs is critical. That is why all the studies on epidemiological evidence and research conducted in India are so important for establishing clear links between air quality and public health.”
Prof (Dr) Sagnik Dey, Chair Professor in Policy Studies, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, said, “We realized that we are conducting research, but often this science is not communicated to policymakers in the way it should be, and particularly not to citizens. That is where we partnered with Climate Trends, mainly to help us use the science to create a strong health-centric narrative. The idea is that, at the end of the day, the message should reach the public, and eventually, we can have a more effective way to involve everyone as part of the solution. Because many times, what happens is that the government initiates certain policy decisions, but people, I feel, need to holistically support all the engagements. Only then can any policy be truly successful.”
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation added, “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 outdoor 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,”
