Impact of Air Quality on Human Health: A Case of Mumbai City, India

Garimella Rama Rao, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Ashok Anant Mahashur, King Edward Memorial Hospital
Ravi Shankar Pitani, Wockhardt

Air Pollution is a major environmental problem in developing countries. It has serious health effects as it results in respiratory diseases. This study focuses on Mumbai a mega city (India) where the levels of all air pollutants are significantly higher than the norms of WHO. In Mumbai, there is a considerable variation in levels of pollution as reflected by the 22 pollution monitoring sites to study the impact of air pollution on health, two areas were selected: Chembur (highly polluted), Borivali (less polluted). The health status was categorized into normal, morbidity related to air pollution and morbidity not related to air pollution. While there was no significant difference between the 2 areas in morbidity not related to air pollution it was found that Chembur had 1.5 times more morbidity due to air pollution than Borivali, while controlling for socio-economic and demographic characteristics as well as other pollution related health indicators.