{"id":214590,"date":"2022-11-16T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T13:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=214590"},"modified":"2022-11-16T18:44:10","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T13:14:10","slug":"health-as-the-focus-of-air-pollution-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/health-as-the-focus-of-air-pollution-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Health as the focus of air pollution policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/strong>ource:\u00a0<\/b>The post is based on the article \u201cHealth as the focus of air pollution policy\u201d <\/b>published in The Hindu <\/b>on 16th November.<\/b><\/p>\n

Syllabus:\u00a0<\/span><\/b>GS 3 \u2013 environmental pollution and degradation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Relevance<\/span><\/b>: About the status of health in India’s pollution policy-making.<\/span><\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: The harmful effects of air pollution on health has again been highlighted by the poor winter air quality in north India.<\/p>\n

Why status of health in India’s pollution policy-making is essential?<\/h5>\n

Clearly mentioned in Indian environmental laws<\/strong>: The primacy of protecting public health is clearly laid out in the statement of objects and reasons of India\u2019s key environmental laws.<\/p>\n

Impact of air pollution on health<\/strong>: According to the Lancet, in India, in 2019, 17.8% of all deaths and 11.5% of respiratory, cardiovascular and other related diseases are attributable to high exposure to pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: The action plan against Delhi\u2019s air pollution<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
What is the present status of health in India’s pollution policy-making?<\/h5>\n

Non representation of health experts<\/strong>: India’s environmental regulators, expert groups and decision-making entities do not have any health expertise.<\/p>\n

For instance, a)<\/strong> the recently constituted Commission for Air Quality Management also lacks any health representation, b)<\/strong> Recent papers published by the Centre for Policy Research revealed that health sector representatives comprise less than 5% of the membership of State Pollution Control Boards.<\/p>\n

What are the contributions of the Ministry of Health\u2019s Steering Committee on Air Pollution on pollution policymaking?<\/h5>\n

Ministry of Health\u2019s Steering Committee on Air Pollution was India’s only effort\u00a0to include health in India’s pollution policymaking The committee took an exposure-centred view of policy.<\/p>\n

The committee a)<\/strong> Prioritised interventions that contributed the most to reducing exposure and thereby providing health benefits, b)<\/strong> Brought the local and global epidemiological evidence on the harmful effects of air pollution to light, and c)<\/strong> Defined policy measures aligned with science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: The weakest link in air pollution fight<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
What needs to be done to include health in India’s pollution policy-making?<\/h5>\n

Mention explicit health benefits<\/strong>: Health must be turned into a feature and eventually a function of the air pollution policy. For instance, foregrounding health in ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) will improve awareness among people.<\/p>\n

Radical rethinking policy design<\/strong>: India should centre science and health to permanently fix the problem of air pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Must read: Air pollution in Delhi: In the hopes for a clear blue sky<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:\u00a0The post is based on the article \u201cHealth as the focus of air pollution policy\u201d published in The Hindu on 16th November. Syllabus:\u00a0GS 3 \u2013 environmental pollution and degradation. Relevance: About the status of health in India’s pollution policy-making. News: The harmful effects of air pollution on health has again been highlighted by the poor… Continue reading Health as the focus of air pollution policy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-214590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704803527},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}