Meeting air pollution control goals under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) could go a long way in improving child health in India, a new research paper has concluded, finding a strong correlation between high outdoor pollution and prevalence of anaemia among children under the age of five years.
A research led by the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health found that on a district level, for every 10 micrograms per cubic metres increase in outdoor PM2.5 exposure, average anaemia prevalence increased by 1.9% and average haemoglobin level decreased by 0.07 g/dL (grams per decilitre).