Air pollution is currently the most important environmental health risk factor in Europe. It remains an important cause of poor health and contributes in particular to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. This briefing presents information for 2021 of the estimated harm to human health caused by three key air pollutants: fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. This year’s assessment also presents an estimation of the health impacts associated with specific diseases to which air pollution contributes. Such impacts are expressed using burden of disease metrics, namely ‘morbidity’ (the state of having a disease or disability) and ‘mortality’ (deaths that have occurred due to a specific disease or a group of diseases). Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe, burden of disease 2023 is part of the Air quality in Europe 2023 package which includes the briefing on Europe’s air quality status 2023 and the briefing on Air pollution in Europe.

Links:
Toxic air killed more than 500,000 people in EU in 2021, data shows