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What does "10 million die from air pollution" means? We know that air pollution is bad, but how can we say "this person died from air pollution"? One can die f
by GuB-42 3y ago
What does "10 million die from air pollution" means?
We know that air pollution is bad, but how can we say "this person died from air pollution"? One can die from cancer, we know it is the cause of death because we detected cancer cells and the symptoms are consistent with cancer. Air pollution may have been the cause, or it could have been many other things, including bad luck, we can't really attribute this death to air pollution, even if the patient lived in a polluted environment.
It is not the same as saying that someone died of covid, like stated in the article. Controversies aside, we know when someone died of covid because of the symptoms and virus testing.
I guess it is a result of weird calculations based on estimated life expectancy reduction correlated to air quality metrics multiplied by the world population or something like that. But speaking in terms of life expectancy directly would make more sense, and probably would give a clearer idea.
- bobsmooth 3y agoCan we say that people who developed mesothelioma died from asbestos?
- GuB-42 3y agoIf these people worked in asbestos facilities and developed mesothelioma, then there is a very good chance it is the cause. Out of the banned substances, asbestos is one of the few where we can actually count the dead and get a meaningful number. But air pollution is vague, there are many types of pollutants with different effects, a wide range of diseases, and we are all exposed to it in some way. There may be some rare cases where you can make a direct connection, for example if you are very exposed to a specific chemical, and you develop a disease that is known to be common for people exposed and rare otherwise. But if you just counted such cases, that would be a gross underestimate of the damage air pollution does.
- limitedfrom 3y agoAlong the same lines of attributing cancer deaths to radiation exposure. When it occurs immediately, one would more or less directly attribute it, but when it manifests later, you still acknowledge that it was a large contributing factor. Even if contributing factors are % of individual deaths, summed up over the population, it adds up many deaths. Similarly, one could look at # premature deaths in the presence of pollution.
- Turskarama 3y agoUsing statistical measures, you don't need to be able to point at any one person and say "air pollution killed this person". There are obviously other correlations you need to be able to account for, but generally you can account for them. >It is not the same as saying that someone died of covid, like stated in the article. Interestingly, the covid death rate is largely calculated the same way. Someone doesn't have to die from acute respiratory issues caused by a covid infection in order to count, we just see that populations with high rates of covid infection also have higher rates of death. This helps also account for e.g. covid causing heart attacks which would otherwise be hard to account for.