Ning Zhang , Sourangsu Chowdhury, Huabo Duan, Hailong Zhao

Air quality impacts human health from multiple perspectives. Ambient air pollution (AAP) exposure poses a great contribution to the global burden of disease (BoD). The United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to evaluate sustainability levels and improve human living environments. In particular, the two indicators 3.9.1 and 11.6.2, i.e. fine particulate matters (PM2.5 and PM10) and relative disease mortality are listed to illustrate the development goals for the air environment. At present, countries around the world have adopted measures to mitigate AAP, and a quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness is necessary. Thus, statistics for AAP and BoD across the global 183 countries were analyzed to help assess the gap between the status quo and SDGs in this study. We offer a new perspective on BoD estimation research - proportional data (AAP-caused disease burden / total environment-caused disease burden) in grouped global countries (according to their geographical and economic conditions) were adopted to substitute the absolute value in this study, which is more reasonable for comparative analysis. The overlap of economic and geographic distribution shows that the heaviest BoD is concentrated in high-income and Middle Eastern regions. Concerning the type of disease burden, acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) and ischemic heart disease (IHD) are two major contributors to BoD, and the worldwide deaths and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) caused by them need to be taken seriously. Generally, this study provides novel evidence for the formulation of air pollution control and management measures to reduce the related disease burden in global regions. To reduce the future BoD, different strategies should be designed depending on the order of driving factors in regions. Even though the triggers of BoD are quite different across the globe, the correlation analysis results inform that reducing emissions along with CO2 from social operations at the source is the most direct and effective path in areas with a high density of susceptible populations.