It’s true work conditions can kill you

Tony Carnie

DURBAN: One in four people around the world die each year from living or working in an unhealthy environment. This is the main conclusion of a new global assessment published by the World Health Organisation in Geneva this week.

It concludes that more than 12 million people die a year from direct environmental risks such as pollution of the air, water and soil or a range of indirect impacts that include stress at work, lack of exercise or poorly designed living areas that promote the spread of disease.

The WHO said the findings confirmed that 23 percent of global deaths and 26 percent of deaths among children under five were due to “modifiable environmental factors”. Stroke, ischaemic heart disease, diarrhoea and cancers were among the biggest killers.

Though it was based largely on a review of numerous expert studies, the latest assessment could only provide “an approximate estimate of how much disease can be prevented by reducing the environmental risks to health”.

The authors said it was difficult to define environmental factors precisely, but these risks included physical, chemical and biological factors and any part of the environment that was affected by man-made interventions. For example, clogged-up sewers and human excreta that contaminated the soil and water contributed to the spread of diarrhoeal diseases and other pathogens.

More than 8 million of the 12 million environment-related deaths were related to diseases attributable to air pollution, indoor pollution and exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

“A healthy environment underpins a healthy population,” said the organisation’s director-general, Dr Margaret Chan.

The authors found that the vast majority of environment-related deaths were due to cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke and ischaemic heart disease. Cancers were responsible for about 1.7 million deaths each year. While smoking was the most important risk factor for developing lung cancer, there were scores of chemical and other substances known to cause lung cancer.

The organisation estimated that 14 percent of lung cancer cases were due to ambient air pollution, 17 percent due to poor household air, nearly 7 percent to residential radon, 2 percent to second-hand tobacco smoke and nearly 7 percent due to other occupational health risks.

Workers involved in the production of benzene and some types of rubber, dyes, pesticides or detergents had triple the risk of developing leukaemia, and there was some evidence that children living close to power lines and low- frequency electromagnetic fields also had a higher risk of developing leukaemia.

Miners, tailors, blacksmiths, painters, bricklayers and carpenters were also at higher risk of developing cancer of the larynx. Stroke and heart diseases were strongly associated with smoking, though some studies showed that up to 40 percent of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had never smoked and were more likely to have become sick because of their work.

Those at high risk from this disease included coal miners, hard rock miners, metal smelter workers and those involved in the concrete, plastic, textile and trucking industries.