Abdul Basit Ahmad Tajuddin1, Richard Broome2, Joshua Horsley3, Bin Jalaludin4, Fay Johnston5,
Mohd Talib Latif1, Norlen Mohamed6, Geoffrey Morgan3, Mazrura Sahani1*, Grant Williamson5
*Corresponding author/ Presenter
1Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
2Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia
3University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
4University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
5University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
6Centre Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Putrajaya, Malaysia
Global Burden of Disease (GBD) reported that the PM2.5 was the fifth ranking mortality risk factors in 2015. WHO estimated that exposure to PM 2.5 caused 4.2 million deaths globally (95% CI: 3.7-4.8 million) and about 26% of deaths due to ambient air pollution in 2012 occurred in South East Asia. Although the global estimate for PM2.5 on health has been well documented, the characteristics and composition of the PM2.5 is very much dependent on the sources, which these are country/region specific. Malaysia’s population is not only exposed to local sources of air pollutants but it also exposed to regional smoke from the seasonal forest fires (or ‘haze’) that occur in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The fine particulate pollution from these forest and peat fires can reach hazardous levels for extended periods of time, posing severe health risks to millions of people across Malaysia. An assessment of the health impacts of levels of particular matter less than 2.5μm in diameter (PM2.5) was conducted to quantify the burden of disease due to air pollution and haze episodes in Malaysia. This assessment was a collaborative effort with the Centre for Air Quality and Research and Evaluation (CAR), Australia. We used the Integrated Exposure Risk Function (IER), developed for the GBD 2010 and 2013 studies, also used by World Health Organization to estimate the burden of disease due to air pollution. For each state in Malaysia and each health outcome, the attributable number of health events due to air / haze pollution exposure was calculated. The burden of diseases on premature mortality from air pollution/ haze was estimated for Malaysia.