It is well known that air pollution is still a major environmental health problem all around the world. In Europe, the co-morbidity rate is 12-14% causing around half a million premature deaths each year. The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimated that in 2019, around 13.8% of all deaths in Hungary could be attributed to environmental risk factors, with air pollution accounting for 6.7% of all deaths. Air quality has been improving in Hungary, the population-weighted national annual PM10 mass concentration has been steadily decreasing between 2005 and 2019 (except for 2010-2012).
The National Public Health Center (NPHC) has regularly carried out environmental health impact assessment of the main pollutant, the fine particulate matter using the AirQ+ software developed by WHO ECEH, for Budapest and municipalities with online monitoring stations in order to estimate the risk of past exposure to air pollution, and to monitor the impact of the measures taken.
In 2016, the NPHC carried out a long-term impact assessment for the period of 2008-2016. The estimated excess deaths in Budapest were between 1400 and 1660 per three-year period. For municipalities with less inhabitants the attributable death cases varied between 190 and 230 cases. For the period of 2017-2019, the attributable excess deaths due to air pollution decreased from a maximum of 10-12% to 8-10% in the most polluted areas. Significant improvements were also observed in Budapest (7%--5%). The improvement over the past 3 years was mainly due to the mild winters among other factors.
Although short-term air pollution episodes classified as 'hazardous' increase mortality by 6% compared to 10 µg/m3 PM2.5 concentration, such polluted days are relatively rare (in Budapest, concentrations above 50 µg/m3 were measured on 15 days in 2017), so the attributable effect is an order of magnitude lower. However, keeping the population informed is an important task of the NPHC, as it helps prevention and reduces the number of emergency care visits.