Interviewee: Jen Burney

Our study here shows that air pollution is actually a much more important cause of excess mortality in sub-Saharan Africa than previously thought. And we find that particular amount of pollution is responsible for more than 20% of infant deaths in our study countries and that exposure to that pollution led to about 400,000 excess infant deaths in that region in 2015 alone. We were surprised to see an effect that was so large and so much larger than existing estimates of mortality. So, this is somewhat sobering in terms of what air pollution really does and what the benefits might be from mitigating it.

Interviewer: Adam Levy