Europe faces a ‘serious public health crisis’due to dangerous air pollution, with its effects affecting all people living on the continent. according to a Guardian investigation.

The analysis of data collected using cutting-edge methodology, which includes details from satellite images and measurements from more than 1,400 ground monitoring stations, reveals that 98% of people live in areas with extremely harmful pollution lof seven particles that exceed the limit set by the World Health Organization.

The most affected country in Europe is North Macedonia. Almost two-thirds of people across the country live in areas with four times the WHO guideline limit for PM2.5, while four areas were found to have almost six times more air pollution, including their capital, Skopje.

Eastern Europe is significantly worse than western Europe, except for Italy, where more than a third of people living in the Po Valley and surrounding areas in the north of the country breathe air that is four times above the danger limit of WHO on hazardous particulate matter.

The Guardian worked with experts on pollution issues to create an interactive map which reveals the most affected areas on the continent.

The measurements refer to PM2.5 – tiny suspended particles produced mainly by burning fossil fuels, some of which can pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream, affecting almost every organ in the body. Current WHO guidelines state that average annual PM2.5 concentrations should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3). The new analysis found that only 2% of Europe’s population lives in areas within this limit. Experts say PM2.5 pollution causes about 400,000 deaths a year across the continent.

“This is a serious public health crisis,” said Roel Vermeulen, professor of environmental epidemiology at Utrecht University, who led the continent-wide team of researchers that compiled the data. “What we see clearly is that almost everyone in Europe is breathing unhealthy air.”

The data also reveals:

Almost all residents in seven eastern European countries such as Serbia, Romania, Albania, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary have twice the WHO guidance.

More than half of the population of North Macedonia and Serbia live at four times the WHO limit.
In Germany, three quarters of the population live on more than twice the WHO. In Spain this percentage is 49%, and in France it is 37%.

In the UK, three quarters of the population live in areas where exposure is between one and two times the WHO guidance, with almost a quarter above it.

Almost 30 million Europeans live in areas with low particulate matter concentrations that are at least four times higher than WHO guidelines.

In Sweden, by contrast, there is no area where PM2.5 reaches more than twice the WHO figure, and some areas in northern Scotland are among the few across Europe to fall below this.