Abstract
BackgroundThis study estimates the potential health gains achievable in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with improved controls on environmental pollution. The UAE is an emerging economy in which population health risks have shifted rapidly from infectious diseases to chronic conditions observed in developed nations. The UAE government commissioned this work as part of an environmental health strategic planning project intended to address this shift in the nature of the country’s disease burden.Methods and FindingsWe assessed the burden of disease attributable to six environmental exposure routes outdoor air, indoor air, drinking water, coastal water, occupational environments, and climate change. For every exposure route, we integrated UAE environmental monitoring and public health data in a spatially resolved Monte Carlo simulation model to estimate the annual disease burden attributable to selected pollutants. The assessment included the entire UAE population (4.5 million for the year of analysis). The study found that outdoor air pollution was the leading contributor to mortality, with 651 attributable deaths (95% confidence interval [CI] 143–1,440), or 7.3% of all deaths. Indoor air pollution and occupational exposures were the second and third leading contributors to mortality, with 153 (95% CI 85–216) and 46 attributable deaths (95% CI 26–72), respectively. The leading contributor to health-care facility visits was drinking water pollution, to which 46,600 (95% CI 15,300–61,400) health-care facility visits were attributed (about 15% of the visits for all the diseases considered in this study). Major study limitations included (1) a lack of information needed to translate health-care facility visits to quality-adjusted-life-year estimates and (2) insufficient spatial coverage of environmental data.ConclusionsBased on international comparisons, the UAE’s environmental disease burden is low for all factors except outdoor air pollution. From a public health perspective, reducing pollutant emissions to outdoor air should be a high priority for the UAE’s environmental agencies.
Highlights
Over the past half century, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has developed at an unprecedented rate
‘‘environmental risk’’ may be defined much more broadly, for this project we focused on environmental risks that are within the mandate and capability of the Environment Agency–Abu Dhabi (EAD) and Health Authority–Abu Dhabi (HAAD) to address
Indoor air pollution and occupational exposures were the second and third leading contributors to mortality, with 153 and 46 deaths attributable to these factors, respectively
Summary
Over the past half century, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has developed at an unprecedented rate. Prior to the discovery of oil in 1958, the UAE ( called the Trucial States) was among the Arab world’s poorest nations, with ‘‘no electrical grid, indoor plumbing, telephone system, public hospital, or modern school’’ [1]. Development has dramatically improved public health in the UAE. As in every other nation undergoing an industrial transition, development has created new forms of environmental pollution, leading to new health risks. This study estimates the potential health gains achievable in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with improved controls on environmental pollution. The UAE is an emerging economy in which population health risks have shifted rapidly from infectious diseases to chronic conditions observed in developed nations.
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