shortly2:
Average life expectancies:
Hong Kong 83.48, Australia 82.10, USA 78.74 etc etc. I am happy here.
SCMP 23 December 2016
Smog takes huge toll on health in China
Study suggests nearly one-third of deaths in the country are related to air pollution
Alice Yan
[email protected]
Smog is related to nearly one-third of deaths on the mainland, putting it on a par with smoking as a threat to health, according to an academic paper based on the study of air pollution and mortality data in 74 cities and published in an international journal.
The findings by Nanjing University's School of the Environment, which were published in the November edition of the journal
Science of the Total Environment, provide the latest estimates of the health cost of the nation's notorious smog.
The latest bout of smog began last Friday, affecting about half a
BILLION people on the mainland.
Previous research work has found equally alarming results about the country's toxic air.
The International Energy Agency published it's first study on air pollution in Juneand estimated that severe air pollution has shortened life expectancy by 25 months.
An academic paper in 2013, co-authored by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology in the United States, Tsinghua University, Peking University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, concluded that bad air had cut life expectancy by an average of 5.5 years in the North of the country.
There are so far no concrete or widely agreed estimates on the impact of air pollution on health partly because it's complicated to measure and there is little historical precedent for prolonged exposure to such high levels of air pollution.
The six researchers from Nanjing University said they conducted the study because air pollution was the
"most severe and worrisome environmental problem in China", but knowledge of it's health effects was insufficient.
...Over the past week, hundreds of flights were grounded, schools suspended classes, private cars were banned from city roads in the north, highways were closed and hospitals were jammed with patients suffering from a level of air pollution that, in many places,
exceeded the limit of air quality monitoring devices.
...Even though the government pledged to scale down production, factories are still stepping up operations and local authorities are worried that production suspensions may lead to an economic downturn.