14:25, 16 мая 2022, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency , Maria ORLOVA
According to WHO, air pollution causes about 7 million premature deaths worldwide each year. Official statistics don’t say how many of them are in Kyrgyzstan. But the Health Ministry said not long ago that the respiratory diseases are on rise in Bishkek. The reason for this is the critical state of the environment. To get more accurate data on how exactly air pollution affects the health of Bishkek residents, a special study is being conducted in the capital with the support of UNICEF.
24.kg news agency met with one of its participants, Professor Jay Turner.
— We are at an early stage of processing the collected data now, so there are no preliminary results yet. In the end, we want to build a relationship between how air quality affects health and how it ultimately affects the economy.
I’d like to tell about our team. They are M-Vector company, Professor Edwards from the University of California, and Rakhat Sabyrbekov, a consultant who has a PhD in economics (AUCA). We plan to present our results this summer.
Although we are studying the impact on the health of the entire population, our study has a special focus on pregnant women and children. I will explain why. It has been found out that, especially during pregnancy, women can have problems because of polluted air — dirty air increases the risks of premature birth, low birth weight, and various genetic pathologies of the fetus.
The environment begins to influence the child even before he or she is born. And if he or she is exposed to polluted air in the first hundred days, then they can have lung and other organ problems for the rest of their life.
Jay Turner
Children who grow up in polluted air are more likely to have respiratory diseases. They may have cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases and even cancer in the future.
Our study is unique, because we’re examining air quality both outside — in different areas of the capital — and inside the home.
People spend more time indoors, and therefore outdoor data may not accurately reflect the impact of dirty air on their health.
Another important aspect is the dependence of the level of pollution on the kind of heating at home: central heating, gas, electricity, coal.
— The issue of lack of data has been raised many times. Did you encounter this problem during your research?
— I would like to point out that air pollution monitoring in Kyrgyzstan is quite good. For example, sensors were purchased and installed in 50 locations last year with the help of ADB. Data from them allows us to receive almost all the information we need.
In addition, other studies have been conducted in the country on sources of air pollution. We are also studying them in our work, of course. This will make our results even clearer.
On the other hand, Kyrgyzstan is not unique in this matter. Many countries face the problem of polluted air, and they have conducted various studies, and the data, methods from them are also applicable to the republic. The relationship between dirty air and human health is similar in all countries.
As part of our research, we are now conducting a survey on how much people are willing to pay for their health.
— What does it mean to be willing to pay?
— That’s actually a very interesting question. It is not asked directly in the survey, of course, but there are a lot of different questions that will help to find out how much people are willing to pay to prolong their life for a few years, for example, spending money on installing a heat pump.
Yes, it costs money. But if you don’t pay it today, you’ll end up spending more on your health and the health of your family members later.
Jay Turner
— Do you think that after the publication of the study people will listen to its results and take some real measures?
— That’s the most important question. That’s why I’m pleased that we’re working with UNICEF, because it is raising awareness of the problem and taking further action that are always interconnected. Another interesting fact is that if some problem is related to children, people make more efforts to solve it than if they do it for themselves. But our research is not completed yet, and we cannot say whether such an argument can be used.
Kyrgyzstan has an environmental action plan proposed by the government to improve the air quality situation. That’s a good point. But at the same time, in my opinion, not all items in it need to be implemented, perhaps something should be removed altogether.
For example, the document says that we must try to use cleaner coal. But the point is to completely abandon the use of this fossil for heating.
Jay Turner
The experience of Ulaanbaatar shows this. I did research there as well, so I can compare. The capitals of Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan are similar in many ways; many people heat their homes with coal. The Mongolian authorities adopted a large program to purify this type of fuel, but unfortunately, this measure had a short-term effect.
Air quality, especially in winter, is also affected by the so-called ground-level inversion, which does not allow particles to disperse. It varies every year. If winter is not very cold, inversion is small, then air is cleaner, as it was this year in Bishkek. On the one hand, if you have such warm winters two or three years in a row, people might think that the smog problem has been solved and stop taking any measures. But that’s not the case.
— Well, we can’t influence the inversion. We will live in dirty air??
— No, we will not. Many cities have a similar problem with inversion. There are various solutions to reduce emissions. I have already mentioned the use of heat pumps, you can also add the switch to other sources of heating, and introduction of energy-efficient technologies. Yes, it costs a lot of money, but they will pay off a hundredfold.