{"id":7856,"date":"2019-05-14T13:51:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T17:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=7856"},"modified":"2023-03-27T16:14:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T20:14:05","slug":"early-life-exposure-to-ambient-fine-particulate-air-pollution-and-infant-mortality-pooled-evidence-from-43-low-and-middle-income-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2019\/05\/14\/early-life-exposure-to-ambient-fine-particulate-air-pollution-and-infant-mortality-pooled-evidence-from-43-low-and-middle-income-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"Early-Life Exposure to Ambient Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Infant Mortality: Pooled Evidence from 43 Low- and Middle-Income Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Ella Ivanescu via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each year, <\/span>over 2.5 million<\/span><\/a> children die within the first 28 days of birth, with three out of four of these neonatal deaths occurring in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, many low- and middle-income countries are <\/span>becoming increasingly exposed<\/span><\/a> to adverse environmental stresses such as ambient fine particulate air pollution, which refers to pollution in outdoor environments. Given estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) that <\/span>over 4.2 million deaths<\/span><\/a> worldwide can be attributed to ambient air pollution, rising pollution is likely contributing to the high rates of neonatal and child mortality in low- and middle-income countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Due to the scarcity of studies in low-income settings where ambient air pollution is very high, most previous studies estimate global mortality due to ambient air pollution using data on active smoking and second-hand smoke in high-income countries. In a <\/span>new International Journal of Epidemiology article<\/i><\/b><\/a>, <\/span>Mahesh Karra<\/span><\/a>, Nihit Goyal and David Canning improve on this evidence by compiling a global sample of individual-level child data from a wide range of low- and middle-income settings. They then match child mortality data to the local ambient pollution level when the children were in utero and in their first year after birth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main findings<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n