Living close to a busy road can increase the hazard of premature death by a fifth, according to recent research.
The study exhibits that rates of heart attacks and stroke heightened by 17 percent among the affected. The outcomes have given rise to screening programs and preventive measures that enhance the chances of survival. Participants were generally poor and approved to have their health monitored during annual visits since 2004.
“Our study highlights the role key environmental factors of indoor/outdoor air pollution, access to modern health services, and proximity to noisy, polluted roadways play in all causes of death and deaths from cardiovascular disease in particular,” announces senior author D.r Rajesh Vedanthan, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health, in a statement. “Our findings help broaden the disease-risk profile beyond age and traditional personal risk factors.”
The research, published in PLoS ONE, specifies environmental factors that present the most significant hazard to the heart and overall health. It also provides much-needed scientific evidence from people in low and middle-income countries. Maximum studies concentrate on urban populations in high-income countries with much greater access to new health care services.
“These results illustrate a new opportunity for health policymakers to reduce the burden of disease in their communities by mitigating the impact of environmental risk factors like air pollution on cardiovascular health,” author Michael Hadley explains. He is a fellow in cardiology and an incoming assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai.
