Complete list of diseases caused by air pollution

List of diseases caused by air pollution :

Unfortunately people living in an highly polluted area were unavoidably and unknowingly breathes highly polluted air. It will lead to various diseases starting from irritation to eyes, nose to affecting respiratory ducts, heart, lungs and other parts of the body depending on type and concentration of pollutants present in the air. The effect of air pollution varies with concentration of air pollutants, toxic nature of pollutants and the health and age of people who happen to breathe these polluted air. The health effects of air pollutants varies based on below list of conditions that normally occurs as listed below.

Short term exposure to high concentration of pollutants will cause immediate health effects. When the values exceeds STL (Short term exposure limits) value of particular pollutants, then the effect would be adverse. Sometimes exposure to highly toxic and highly concentrated pollutants would leads to sudden death.

Long term exposure to Medium concentration of pollutants will cause long term health issues like losing lung capacity etc..

Exposure of weaker persons like children under age 14, adults or old age people, pregnant women and people already suffer from heart and lung diseases, and sports person and workers outdoors who work rigorously will get severely affected even at low concentrated pollution levels.

Diseases caused by Outdoor air Pollution:

According to WHO (World Health Organization) data more than 3 million premature deaths globally was due to outdoor air pollution caused by mostly vehicle exhausts, industrial exhausts and secondary pollutants like ozone caused by the reaction of VOC (Volatile Organic Components) with nitrous oxides in the presence of UV rays from sunlight. Not all pollution is caused by human activities, sometimes natural draught, dry wind, sand storm, etc also causes air pollution. Not just ozone & VOC’s forms outdoor pollutants. A very important other pollutant is dust particles of sizes less than 10 microns (PM10) and less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5).

Dust, smog or fog of particle sizes less than 2.5 microns is very harmful and will get pass through lungs and enters into blood stream. With the advancement in technologies like Additive Manufacturing, Industrial laser processing, 3D printing processes generates more of ultra fine particles that easily get passed through alveoli in lungs and mixes with blood stream. Some of most common diseases caused by outdoor air pollutants is listed below.

Stroke
Cardio Vascular Disease
chronic cough
lung cancer
Pneumonia (or Lower respiratory tract infection)
Aggravated asthma
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
asthma,
bronchitis,
emphysema,
Shortness of breath.
Leukemia (Blood Cancer due to inhalation of benzene vapors)

Diseases caused by Indoor air Pollution:

Out of 6.5 million premature deaths caused by air pollution, more than 3.5 million deaths was due to indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution was mainly caused by burning of wood and coal at home, pollen dusts, Lead and VOC’s emitted by furniture, carpets , Tobacco fumes etc. Since mostly aged people and children less than 14 years spend most of their times indoor and are very weak and easily gets affected by air pollution. Some other reasons for high air pollution levels in industrial buildings and manufacturing plants is due to poor industrial ventilation, negligence or accidental spillage of hazardous liquids, process exhaust etc..

Some of the reasons for poor indoor air quality in hospitals is due to poorly designed centralized HVAC system and it leads to most HAD Hospital Acquired Diseases. Most of the diseases remains same caused by both indoor and outdoor pollutants. But the effects varies with respect to individual health condition.