06 Nov 2015-|Gurgaon (Manesar) | Amity University Gurgaon
Distinguished Invited Talk by Prof. Smith from University of California on “Household air pollution in India"
Distinguished Invited Talk by Prof. Smith from University of California on “Household air pollution in India: What is the problem and where are we going?
Air and water pollution are our main concern, which are impacting community health. As a result, we are now living in worst polluted environment. The ever increasing vehicular toxic emissions and burning of solid agriculture waste, use of wood-stove by rural population are some of the biggest culprit, which we all know are like slow poison impacting our environment and health. AMITY University Haryana (AUH) has been equally concerned about the environmental pollution and health. To provide further impetus, AUH has recently created Amity Centre for Environmental Health Sciences (ACEHS), a centre of excellence. Dr. Srikanth S Nadadur, Program Director, NIH, USA, who visited AUH on 27th Oct, 2015 to deliver an invited talk titled “Air Pollution and Your Health: What Science is telling us?” has consented to provide active support to the centre. Coinciding with our endevour in the area of Environmental Health Sciences, AUH was previleged to host another leading Environmental Scientist, Prof. Kirk R. Smith, University of California, who provided first hand information on global environmental concerns.
Prof. Smith was traditionally welcomed and received by Pro-VC and Deputy-VC and number of HoIs, HoDs and senior professors. Prof. Smith was pleasantly surprised that AUH has timely established 'Amity Centre for Environmental Health Sciences (ACEHS)'. His keen interest in ongoing research on air quality and climate monitoring and biomedical research on drug resistance, infections diseases, cancer, nano science and technology, biofuel and computational biology was very visible. He was happy that AUH is focusing on integrative sciences encompassing health and engineering.
Prof. (Dr.) Padmakali Banerjee, in her welcome address, highlighted the crisis of pollution and related deleterious impacts on human health, and efforts to bring out interventions by young scientists at Amity University in the form of an establishment of the Amity Center for Environmental Health Sciences. She also emphasized the issues of health impact, particularly on children and woman during traditional daily cooking in India as well as need of immediate attention of researchers to take up such issues for further monitoring and management through academia-industry integration as well as through social awareness among rural and urban population. Prof. Rajendra Prasad, Director AIB-AIISH, extended a warm welcome to Prof. Smith. In his brief remark, highlighted as to how Prof. Smith and his research group address the relationships amongst air quality, health, resource use, and policy in developing countries, with a focus on the health effects of air pollution exposure, particularly in women and children from household cooking using the solid fuel.
Considering Prof. Smith’s exemplary contribution in environmental pollution and its impact on health, AUH was proud to confer upon him the title Honorary Professor by Pro-VC and Deputy-VC.
Prof. Smith delivered an acceptance lecture titled “Household air pollution in India: What is the problem and where are we going?” The highlight of his talk was on household air pollution and the health consequences of the pollution that is made by cooking using traditional solid fuel. Extremely high particulate pollution (PM2.5) is found in Indian cities, such as Delhi, are heading in world ranking with 153 microgram/m3. Prof. Smith himself monitored 300 microgram/m3 in Delhi in the current week, which is much higher than Indian as well as Global standards. In a rural household in Gujrat in 1981, 500 microgram/m3 of PM2.5 was detected. He highlighted the alarmingly high level of pollution exposure which is present over a large population in India. Traditionally solid fuel (fire wood, agricultural waste and coal) is used for cooking, and in developing countries particularly India, Northern Africa and East Asian regions, the share of population using solid fuel is more than 50% (close to 3 billion). He mentioned that the impact of high pollution is synergistically connected with socio-economic status and poverty which further aggravate the challenge. He further gave a brief account on priority pollutants in air including hydrocarbons (HC), particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10), chlorinated HCs and many unburned components. He explained the mechanism of incomplete burning of pollutants in cigarettes and mentioned that exposure from chullah is equivalent to smoke inhaled by nearly 400 cigarettes.
House hold pollution is affecting at an alarming level in Indian context and reducing life expectancy (DALY; Disability Adjusted Life Year) as well as pre-mature death. India is in Chullah Trap, as its 700 million people are forced to arrange alternative to traditional Chullah for last three decade, while some percentage of population has switched to LPG and other cleaner fuel. Looking towards an alternative to Chullah, he categorically explained the failure of even most efficient Chullahs, which are 8 times polluting over WHO standard of household pollution, so the viable option, is to switch to cleaner option including LPG. In this direction Government also geared up through policy of LPG subsidy transfer directly to consumer and ‘gave it up’ campaign for economically better population.
The talk by Prof. Smith was followed by a very interactive session with questions from the young faculty members and students. The issues brought out by audience included whether India has capacity to provide LPG to all of its population, prospect of alternate to LPG in the form of solar based options and issues of traditional practices, distinct culinary practices as well as evolutionary adaptive capacity to withstand fire and smoke. Prof. Smith explained every issue raised and emphasized the need of LPG to face the issue of household alarming pollution citing several of his rich experience.
Panel Discussion
A panel discussion/brain storming session was conducted to chalk out mission and objectives of newly constituted Amity Center for Environmental Health Sciences under Chair of Pro-VC with Prof. Smith and panelists (Prof. Rajendra Prasad, MajGen (Dr.) Mahavir Singh, Prof. P.C.S. Devara, Prof. S M Paul Khurana, Maj. Gen (Retd.) V K Narang, Dr. Ashok Kumar Raghav, Maj. Gen. B.S. Suhag, Dr. Ram Krishna Thakur, Dr. Biswarup Sen, Dr. Kushagra Rajendra, Dr Machiavelli, Dr. Ranjeet Kumar Brajpuriya, Dr. Brijesh Kumar, Dr. Madhu Joshi, Dr. Sadhanshu Shukla, Ms. Sarika Jain, Prof. Burra VLS Prasad, and Dr. Priti Singh. Pro-VC initiated the panel discussion with a brief introduction of newly constituted Amity Center for Environmental Health Sciences followed by Prof. R Prasad’s remarks to engage Prof. Smith with his rich experience in similar area. He framed out the possibilities and prospects of the center for further discussion, so that the valuable suggestion could be integrated. Prof. Devara delivered a presentation on the regular monitoring of different parameters of air quality and climate, which include particle number-mass-size, solar irradiance, and black carbon (soot) aerosols, under the R & D activities of Amity Centre for Ocean-Atmospheric Science and Technology (Amity COAST) at AUH. In the background of issues raised, Prof. Smith suggested several valuable points in the area of environmental health based upon his field experiences in USA and India. Based upon location and exposure status, Center can start field-based environmental quality (air and water) monitoring and response among human population through clinical research followed by integrating policy and management aspects to cope up high pollution exposure. He further suggested the idea of ‘air pollution control district’ what is in practice in USA for holistic understanding of pollution dynamics.
A team of experts and the team effort will be the key to maximize the output for any research initiative. In between, Prof. Rajendra Prasad pointed out relative tolerance scenario across population against environmental contamination, where dose-response is very uneven. A doctoral student of Prof Smith, Mr. Ajay suggested prospect of academic and research training of student and potential faculty in the area of environmental health. In this context, Dr. Kushagra pointed out the possibility of a lecture series of Prof. Smith for ACEHS. In response, Prof. Smith agreed for a specialized lecture/interaction session in future based upon his monitoring methodologies in India.
Prof. Smith further brought out his parent institution’s framework on environmental health which integrates epidemiology, toxicity, exposure assessment and risk assessment. added with special research. His main concern with health research is the lack of long-term reliable data but at the same time he updated the development of portable measuring devices made for monitoring different air quality parameters , which seems to be potential area. He further shared his on-going research engagement in India at Palwal, Haryana where vertical profiling of VOCs, particulate matter and secondary pollutants monitoring is going on with the help of drones, and in Pune a strategic awareness campaign along with VADU (an health surveillance NGO) is going on to speed up LPG transition from chullah among rural people. Dr. Biswarup requested Prof. Smith to brief what would be the focus of the newly established centre to make it a unique centre of excellence in our nation. Prof. Smith emphasized the need of various interventions on priority areas of environmental pollution and their health impacts. Following recommendations were made
Recommendations of the Panel on Amity Centre for Environmental Health Sciences, AUH
Intervention
Cost effective interventions to improve quality, policy management, and remedial measures of health, consequences of household (indoor) air pollution along with outdoor air pollution are required. Randomized trials of interventions to reduce household air pollution are not feasible for certain health endpoints; hence, focus should be on appropriate interventions to provide the information that is needed for advancing policy.
Environmental Health
Environmental health which includes epidemiological research, exposure assessment, toxicology, risk assessment should be another priority area. For this, a team of experts should be formulated from areas of environmental pollution, bio-statistics, clean bioenergy/biogas technology, managements, economics, policy making, and electronics for chipset and devices, and encourage data from field studies and trials explicitly apart from laboratory data.
Long-term Air Pollution Monitoring
Long-term data on out-door and in-door air pollution should be gathered, and statistically analyzed. As a part of dissemination and to enhance our awareness, the data could be flashed on Amity University Webpage in real-time. The scientific results obtained from such data sets should be suitably coupled with biological parameters in order to examine the impact of pollutants on health aspects. Models also need to be developed and validated with real-time observations for establishing health prediction and awareness programs.
Clean Bioenergy
Bioresource based clean bioenergy projects and technology should be promotedand would be ideal if the feasibility of bio-based energy technology is worked out for rural population household cooking etc.
Academic Capacity Building
Specialized lecture series and short-term training programs in the areas of environmental pollution and respective monitoring methodologies by engaging health and safety units of industrial hubs should be encouraged. PG level projects/dissertation should be encouraged covering priority areas of environmental pollution and related health impacts. In addition, elective course on environmental health should be offered.
Brief Profile of Prof. Kirk R Smith Smith
Prof. Smith, an elected member in the US National Academy of Sciences, is a Professor of Global Environmental Health and is also founder and Director of the campus-wide Masters Program in Global Health and Environment. Earlier, he headed the Energy Program of the East-West Center in Honolulu before moving to Berkeley in 1995. He serves on a number of national and international scientific advisory committees including the Global Energy Assessment, National Research Council’s Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate, the Executive Committee for WHO Air Quality Guidelines, and the International Comparative Risk Assessment of the Global Burden of Disease Project. Dr. Smith contributed a great deal to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the work of the IPCC was recognized by the joint award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Smith is a recipient of the 2012 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for his work with cook-stoves, health, and climate. He is also credited with designing and implementing the first randomized controlled trial of the health effects of indoor air pollution (IAP) from cook-stoves.
Prof. Smith’s research focuses on environmental and health issues in developing countries, particularly those related to health-damaging and climate-changing air pollution from household energy use, and includes field measurement and health-effects studies in India, China, Nepal, Mongolia, Mexico, and Guatemala as well as development and application of tools for international policy assessments. He also develops and deploys small, smart, and cheap microchip-based monitors for use in these settings.Prof. Smith has demonstrated that the highest exposures to air pollutants occur in rural, indoor settings in developing countries where biomass and coal are the principal fuels. He has documented the associated risk for pneumonia and adverse birth outcomes in children and cataracts, tuberculosis, heart disease, and chronic lung disease in women as well as developed a range of small, smart, cheap microchip-based devices for field measurements. He has also shown that renewable biomass fuel cycles are not greenhouse-gas neutral by conducting extensive measurements in India and China. He also created the concept of natural debt and applied it to international greenhouse-gas negotiations. This enables countries to negotiate how much responsibility each has for cleaning up the environment based upon relative contributions in the past and present. He created the concept of risk transition to complement traditional epidemiologic and demographic transitions models.
He is author or co-author on several hundred publications.