SDG #3 is to “To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.”
Within SDG #3 are 13 targets, of which we here focus on Target 3.9:
By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
Target 3.9 has three indicators:
Indicator 3.9.1: Mortality rate attributed to the household (indoor) and ambient (outdoor) air pollution.
Indicator 3.9.2: Mortality rate attributed to unsafe water, sanitation, and lack of hygiene.
Indicator 3.9.3: Mortality rate attributed to unintentional poisoning.
Exposure to PM2.5, or particulate matter of a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less, from both outdoors and household air pollution, poses great risks to health worldwide. Much of the culprit of household air pollution is due to the use of 2.4 billion people worldwide cooking using open fires or stoves burning biomass, kerosene or coal, resulting in an estimated 3 million annual deaths. The saddest facet of these deaths is such individuals simply wish to have access to energy, but the only form affordable and accessible to them compromise their air quality, and affect their health.
The air in people’s home’s is killing millions, attributable to the burning of solid cooking fuels like wood, despite it being since the times of the earliest humans. Other fuels which put populations at risk in the home from burning are animal dung, charcoal, agricultural waste, and inefficient kerosene stoves.
Some of the causes of deaths which put populations at risk from long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter can be caused by conditions affecting the blood flow and blood vessels in the brain, and problems due to narrowed arteries in the heart, which supply blood to the heart’s muscles. Such risks of the burdens of disease from exposure are due to behaviours, environments and occupations..
To help measure this, the World Health Organization’s Global Health Estimates are used, which separate deaths by country and cause.
Mortality from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene is most observed in low- and middle-income countries, which we’ll explore in greater detail when looking at SDG #6 (Clean Water & Sanitation).
