Made of satin and studded with Swarovski crystals, Chinese designer Masha Ma’s face masks are the epitome of an edgy design aesthetic inspired by youth subcultures.
But these elegant adornments, unveiled at the Paris Fashion Week, are more than just fashion accessories; they are also a manifestation of the Chinese public’s growing frustration with air pollution. Chinese cities are regularly blanketed by choking smog, compelling millions of people to stay indoors. The problem reached crisis point in December 2015 when Beijing authorities issued their first ever pollution “red alert”, forcing the shutdown of schools and factories.
However, environmental pollution is not merely an inconvenience. It is also a killer.
New figures from the World Health Organisation show unhealthy environments kill an estimated 12.6 million people a year worldwide, accounting for nearly a quarter of all deaths. Diseases related to air pollution cause half of these fatalities. The Geneva-based group has found that environmental risk factors such as air, water and soil pollution, chemical contamination, climate change and ultraviolet radiation are responsible for around 100 potentially fatal diseases.
Most of those are non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as strokes, heart disease, cancers and chronic respiratory disease.
Unsurprisingly, the elderly and the young are particularly vulnerable. Children are especially susceptible because they breathe more quickly than adults and the cell layer in their lungs can be more easily penetrated by polluting particles. According to a recent report from UNICEF, air pollution kills 600,000 children under the age of five every year.
Dr Maria Neira, director of public health and the environment at the WHO, says the problem stems partly from poor policymaking.
The world’s governments, she says, are simply not spending enough on prevention measures that could cut down the number of environment linked diseases and deaths in our cities, homes and workplaces.
Annual average healthcare spending per capita on general disease prevention has fallen by 0.6 per cent in the four years to 2013, compared with growth of 5.6 per cent in the previous four-year period.
Spending on prevention and public health services stood at USD272 billion in 2013, accounting for just 3.6 per cent of the total global health expenditures.
“If one of every four deaths is coming from the environment, you would expect one in every four dollars to be spent on preventing it,” Neira told delegates at a recent London conference.
We’re not spending enough on primary prevention. We need a shift in this proportion and this is very much about changing the culture.
“That’s not the proportion we have today. Ninety-seven per cent of resources are being spent on treatment. We’re not spending enough on primary prevention. We need a shift in this proportion and this is very much about changing the culture.”
Urban sprawl raises health risks
Primary prevention aims to stop disease before it ever occurs. Improvement in water and sanitation and better access to immunisation and insecticide-treated mosquito nets are some of the strategies that have reduced the spread of infectious diseases like malaria and diarrhoea, once the main causes of environmental-related deaths.
But with two thirds of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, primary prevention should become a priority for city authorities. Cutting down traffic congestion and pollution, building sustainable housing and improving working conditions are among the policies Neira is advocating.
The health benefits of smarter urban development can be considerable. Take Atlanta and Barcelona’s contrasting approaches as an example. Both cities have approximately the same population and the same level of wealth per capita.
But this is where the similarities end. The congested and sprawling US city takes up over 11 times as much land and produces six times more transport-related carbon emissions per person compared with Barcelona, according to the New Climate Economy (NCE), part of a global commission chaired by Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon and British economist and academic Lord Nicholas Stern.
The NCE report claims that in increasing the the distance between homes, businesses and local amenities and jobs, urban sprawl raises the cost of providing infrastructure and public services by up to 40 percent.
“Correcting this problem provides an opportunity to increase economic productivity, improve public health and protect the environment,” the report said.
The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) is also trying to address risks from urban sprawl as part of its planning review, its most wide-ranging since 1979. Because of low density urban development, NSW residents rely heavily on cars. If nothing changes, traffic congestion is set to become a major health and economic concern, costing the city an estimated AUD12.6 billion by 2030.
The NSW’s new planning bill proposes more compact, transit-oriented and sustainable urban development, capable of accommodating an extra million people in Sydney over the next 10 years.
Building an active transport network, one which encourages people to walk and cycle, is one of the main primary prevention initiatives.
Cities can provide opportunities for people to be physically active.
“Cities can provide opportunities for people to be physically active,” Jennifer Kent, one of the University of Sydney researchers involved in the review, told Mega.
“If we can get more people out of the car to the public transport that (also) involves walking and cycling… health benefits are enough to ameliorate risk factors such as diabetes or obesity.”
Curitiba’s master plan
Smart urban development has also gained a foothold in emerging economies – where cities tend to be much more densely populated.
Curitiba is Brazil’s eighth most populous city with nearly 2 million inhabitants. Yet despite a five-fold increase in its population in the past 50 years, air pollution levels are lower than in many other rapidly growing cities and life expectancy is two years longer than the national average, according to the WHO.
The city did not achieve this success by accident. Its accomplishments stem from a radical city plan that was implemented by a group of young architects as far back as 1960s. The Curitiba Master Plan has controlled urban sprawl, invested in upgrading slums, waste recycling and bus rapid transit system and banned polluting industries. Boasting more than 50 square metres of green space per inhabitant, Curitiba — whose municipal budget is just USD1 billion — shows it is possible to implement sustainable urban planning with limited financial resources.
Hunting down household killers
Primary prevention is also essential outside cities.
Across rural parts of Africa and South America, the fuel used to heat homes and cook food is a major cause of pollution-related disease. The burning of wood, dung, coal and other traditional fuels in the home leads to the deaths of over 4 million people every year; millions more suffer serious illnesses.
In the rural highlands of Guatemala, for example, the Maya have cooked on stone fires built on the dirt floors of household kitchens for centuries.
As a result, many homes are filled with toxic smoke that is the leading cause of death for Guatemalan children under the age of 5, causing pneumonia, lung cancer and heart disease.
This is where something as simple as clean fuel stoves could make a major difference.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, launched by former US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, has helped introduce “plancha” vented stoves, made of durable concrete with a steel top which cut indoor smoke levels by as much as 90 per cent. The Alliance aims to bring cleaner cookstoves and fuels to 100 million households by 2020.
Health at the heart of policy goals
These initiatives are just the beginning. WHO’s Neira says that political and business leaders must put health at the centre of their policy focus to reduce unhealthy environments.
“Health is generated not only at the hospitals, but health is generated by every decision that we are making… Health is about changing our consumption patterns and making them less harmful (for the environment),” she says. “But it can be win-win. We don’t need to lose anything.”
It can be WIN-WIN. We don't need to lose anything.
