World Health Organization Article Review: Indoor air Pollution

News Article Review: Indoor air Pollution

        In the article “Public health and environment health topics” by “WHO”, the journalist discusses the environmental impacts on human health. This environmental influence effects a humans health in many ways, through exposures to physical, chemical and biological risk factors, and through related changes in our behaviour in response to those factors. WHO also states that “Thirteen million deaths annually are due to preventable environmental causes. Preventing environmental risk could save as many as four million lives a year, in children alone, mostly in developing countries.” In the article I chose to focus my review on the main focus was on indoor pollutants. WHO states that “more than three billion people worldwide continue to depend on solid fuels, including biomass fuels (wood, dung, agricultural residues) and coal, for their energy needs. Cooking and heating with solid fuels on open fires or traditional stoves results in high levels of indoor air pollution.” As we know, burring these products cause indoor smoke which contains small particles and carbon monoxide. There is consistent evidence that exposure to indoor air pollution can lead to acute lower respiratory infections in children under five, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer (where coal is used) in adults. According to “Global Health Risks: Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks” indoor air pollution is responsible for 2.7% of the global burden of disease. The sad truth is, most of the places that use these solid fuels cannot afford ‘cleaner’ methods. Thus the possibility of decreasing the amount of deaths due to indoor pollutants is low. However reading this article I felt that there was a little bit of a bias opinion in this subject. Everything stated is true, but while reading the article, “WHO” would mention small things, they have done to improve living standards in these homes. They continue to boast about their accomplishments which quite frankly are not that high. Thought I highly agree with this article. All over the world people cannot afford expensive clean methods of fuel, so they rely on what they can find. Sadly, these findings cause long term illness.