Health impacts of air pollution

Poor air quality is still considered the main environmental health factor influencing human health and causing premature deaths worldwide, including in European countries, and Latvia is not an exception. The European Commission zero pollution action plan sets a target to reduce the health impacts of air pollution (estimated by the number of premature deaths attributable to particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM_2.5)) by at least 55% by 2030, compared with those in 2005. This means that a level of 45% of the 2005 figure for premature deaths or lower should be reached. Over the last 15 years or so, Latvia has made more progress with reducing its air pollution load from various sources (e.g. industrial, regional heating plants and road traffic) including fine particulate matter. Between 2005 and 2022, the average concentration of PM_2.5 in Latvia, expressed as a population-weighted average of air pollution, fell from 17.1 μg/m³ to 8.7 μg/m³. The related number of premature deaths in Latvia attributable to PM_2.5 decreased from an estimated 2 639 in 2005 to 822 in 2022, giving a reduction ratio of 68.9% compared with the base year in question – meaning that the 2030 goal of 55% has already been reached. However, significant fluctuations from year to year have been observed: in 2020 this ratio was 68.4%, but in 2021 it was 46.8%. Nevertheless, extrapolating from the progress observed over the past 15 years, the data show that the target will be probably passed in Latvia in 2030. However, the indicated annual fluctuations are causing some level of uncertainty, as is shown in the graph.