The city of São Paulo could avoid 11,372 deaths annually if it improved its environmental indicators of air pollution, increased its green areas and reduced its average daily temperature by 1°C, indicates a new study that tried to estimate the health impact of applied public policies in the country’s largest city.
The number is equivalent to 17% of the total number of deaths from natural causes recorded annually in the adult population (aged 20 and over) in the municipality. The data, from 2017, are from the Mortality Information System (SIM-SP).
Of the total number of deaths, 8,409 were attributed to pollution above recommended levels, 2,593 to lack of green spaces and 370 to excessive daily heat.
The research is led by Brazilian Evelise Pereira Barboza, a doctoral student at the Global Institute of Health (ISGlobal) and the University of Pompeu Fabra (Spain), and by researchers from European institutions and the Center for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health (Nupens), from the University of São Paulo.
The impact estimate was made from mathematical models that calculated how many deaths can be attributed to above-recommended levels of pollutant concentrations in the atmosphere or to excess temperature, for example.
In the case of São Paulo, the researchers analyzed what would be the reduction in deaths if the city reached the international recommended levels, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), or based on local references, comparing the neighborhoods.
For example, for the analysis of mortality associated with air pollution, the maximum concentration of 10 µg/m was used as a reference.3 of nitrogen dioxide (NOtwo) and a maximum of 5 µg/m3 of particulate matter of dimension 2.5 (PM2.5), both limits recommended by the WHO. The study used data up to 2017 from Cetesb, which indicated that São Paulo had 41.2 µg/m3 of NOtwo and 16.6 µg/m3 of PM2.5.
Regarding green areas, the WHO recommendation is that everyone has access to them. Thus, the researchers compared the distribution of these spaces by districts (value from 0 to 1) of the city through satellite monitoring of the concentration of trees in each region.
Finally, for the daily maximum temperature, the data were obtained from measurements at the municipal meteorological stations, provided by the CGE of the city hall, with an estimated reduction of 1 °C through the planting of trees, greater soil permeability and decrease of vehicle traffic. The average daily temperature in the city of São Paulo was 19.5 °C in 2017.
According to Barboza, the research is important because it is the first to actually quantify how actions aimed at urban planning and the environment directly impact population health.
“The health budget should not only be applied to hospitals, it should also consider air quality, and how it impacts quality of life,” he says.
THE Sheetthe city’s Executive Secretary for Climate Change, Antonio Fernando Pinheiro Pedro, said that the secretariat created a plan with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% by 2030, starting with the partial change of the fleet buses by electric vehicles.
Regarding the city’s afforestation, he acknowledged that the distribution of trees is uneven, and said that it is within the Municipal Urban Afforestation Plan (Pmau) to increase the city’s green areas, including the creation of two large parks by 2024. secretary, the inequality in urban vegetation cover “in densely populated areas compared to Jardins can produce an average daily temperature difference of up to 6 ˚C in the city”.
The Municipal Health Department, through the Health Surveillance Coordination, said that Vigiar, a program aimed at analyzing health risk from air pollution, monitors, through Sentinel Units, the increase in the incidence of respiratory diseases. in children that may be linked to pollution.
