A significant proportion of the burden of disease in Europe continues to be attributed to environmental pollution resulting from human activity, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA) report. \u2018Healthy environment, healthy lives: how the environment influences health and well-being in Europe<\/a>‘<\/em>, draws extensively on World Health Organization data on the causes of death and disease and highlights how the quality of Europe’s environment plays a key role in determining our health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n
The report states that air pollution remains Europe’s top environmental threat to health, with more than 400,000 premature deaths driven by air pollution every year. The World Health Organization<\/a> has attributed these deaths to a range of diseases caused by outdoor air pollution; ischaemic heart disease (40%), stroke (40%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (11%), lung cancer (6%) and acute lower respiratory infections in children (3%).<\/p>\n
The burden of pollution<\/a> and climate change varies across Europe, with clear differences between countries in the east and west of Europe. The highest fraction of national deaths (27%) is attributable to the environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the lowest in Iceland and Norway (9%).<\/p>\n