Air pollution threatens the health of 8.8 million people across 4 regions in Sierra Leone. The average PM2.5 level is 9.6 Āµg/mĀ³ā1.9Ć higher than the WHO guideline.
Brought to you by Amrit Sharma
Sierra Leone faces significant air pollution challenges. 100% of states exceed the WHO guideline for clean air. This is putting 8.8 million across 4 states at risk.
The average PM2.5 over 2023 was 9.6Āµg/mĀ³. That's 1.9 times the WHO guideline for clean air of 5Āµg/mĀ³.
This is equivalent of everybody, including children, smoking about 159 cigarettes in a year.
Every person in Sierra Leone is losing 0.45 years of their life to air pollution. This isn't just a statisticāit's grandparents who won't see their grandchildren graduate. Parents missing birthdays. Lives cut short. Breathing kills.
These stolen years come from diseases you knowāCOPD that makes every breath a struggle, lung cancer that turns healthy tissue deadly, heart attacks that strike without warning, strokes that change everything in an instant. Air pollution doesn't just kill. It damages your body from the inside, every single day.
Across Sierra Leone, 4.0M years of life hang in the balance. That's the collective future being taken from 8.8 million peopleāsimply by breathing.
Distribution of population across different PM2.5 pollution levels. The WHO guideline is 5 Āµg/mĀ³āonly populations below this threshold are breathing safe air.