New Delhi, 30 September 2025 — A groundbreaking Health Benefit Assessment Dashboard launched today by Climate Trends and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi reveals that achieving the National Clean Air Programme’s target of reducing PM2.5 levels by 30% could decrease nationwide disease prevalence to 3.09% from the current national average of 4.87%, according to the 5th National Family Health Survey data.
The launch took place at a consultation workshop organised to kickstart discussions on air quality and public health as the monsoon season officially ends. This first-of-its-kind tool, based on indigenous NFHS-5 data across 641 Indian districts, demonstrates associations between PM2.5 air pollution levels and critical diseases affecting women and children across the country.
The Dashboard Reveals Critical Insights About Women’s Health
The dashboard highlights alarming yet actionable insights for women of reproductive age between 15 and 49 years. It tracks diseases including hypertension, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, anemia, and diabetes.
The average PM2.5 concentration in India during the NFHS-5 survey period between 2019 and 2021 stood at 59.6 µg/m³. With a 30% reduction under NCAP, this would fall to 41.72 µg/m³, delivering significant health benefits.
Diabetes Prevalence Could Drop Significantly
Among women of reproductive age, diabetes prevalence currently stands at 1.7%, which could drop to 1.4% if clean air targets are met. Goa shows the highest prevalence of diabetes mellitus while Nagaland records the lowest.
Reductions in diabetes prevalence are projected to range between 8% and 25%, with the greatest benefits in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, and Haryana. Even highly urbanized states and union territories such as Chandigarh, Puducherry, Goa, and Daman & Diu show notable reductions of 12–13%.
Hypertension Would See Meaningful Declines
Hypertension in women is expected to decline meaningfully under NCAP targets, with reductions generally between 2% and 8%. The largest improvements are found in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, while moderate but important declines are seen in Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Odisha, and Sikkim.
Respiratory and Heart Diseases Show Striking Improvements
For Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the projected reductions are striking, generally ranging from 3% to 12%. Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, and Punjab record the strongest improvements, while larger states such as West Bengal, Kerala, Mizoram, and Meghalaya also experience substantial declines.
Heart disease prevalence among women is projected to decline by 3% to 10% if NCAP targets are achieved. Bihar, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, and Nagaland show the most pronounced improvements, while large states like West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, and Meghalaya also see meaningful gains.
Anemia Can Be Reduced Through Cleaner Air
Anemia, a major health challenge for women in India, could also be reduced through improved air quality. Reductions of 3% to 8% are expected nationwide, with the greatest benefits in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. Significant improvements are also projected in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, and Delhi.
Children’s Health Would Benefit Significantly
The analysis demonstrates that achieving NCAP clean air targets would lead to measurable declines in lower respiratory infections, low birth weight, and anemia among children across India.
Indo-Gangetic Plain and Eastern States Would See Maximum Benefits
The benefits are most pronounced in regions with high baseline prevalence and severe air pollution, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and eastern states. Bihar and Delhi record the highest LRI prevalence, dropping from 9.89% to 9.37% and 10.45% to 9.73% respectively, while Odisha and Jharkhand also show strong improvements.
Birth Weight Shows Significant Improvements
Child Low Birth Weight prevalence remains a major challenge in Bihar (16.25% to 15.39%), Assam (15.52% to 14.91%), and Uttar Pradesh (21.02% to 19.79%), alongside very high rates in Punjab (23.04% to 22.19%) and West Bengal (20.05% to 19.23%). Achieving clean air targets would deliver meaningful improvements across all these states.
Child Anemia Records Substantial Reductions
Some of the highest reductions in child anemia are observed in Bihar (40.23% to 36.61%), Jharkhand (41.68% to 38.99%), West Bengal (41.03% to 38.09%), Assam (39.44% to 36.70%), and Tripura (39.86% to 37.43%). These findings underscore that northern and eastern states, where pollution burdens intersect with high child vulnerability, stand to gain the most from cleaner air.
Specific Districts Face the Highest Disease Burden
The dashboard identifies specific districts with the highest actual prevalence rates. For women, North Goa records the highest diabetes prevalence at 4.75%, Bathinda in Punjab shows hypertension at 19.53%, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala records COPD at 9.43%, and Leh in Ladakh shows anemia at a staggering 93.78%.
For children, Pashchim Champaran in Bihar records the highest lower respiratory infections at 27.59%, Kheda in Gujarat shows low birth weight at 38.75%, and Tapi in Gujarat records child anemia at 59.84%.
Air Pollution Remains a Silent Emergency Despite Its Impact
Dr. Virinder Sharma, Technical Member, Commission for Air Quality Management in Delhi NCR, explained the disconnect: “One issue is that the numbers are shocking, but abstract. They are not connected with people directly. The impacts feel distant, like climate change—something in the future, gradual, especially in terms of morbidity. People do not see the impacts immediately. There’s no ‘death certificate’ for air pollution. Losses are happening—whether in Delhi NCR hospitals, workplaces, or through shortened lifespans—but the crisis is silent, invisible, and diffuse.”
Communication Failure Hinders Action, Not Scientific Evidence
The experts gathered at the workshop agreed that it is not a failure of attributing air quality impacts to public health, but instead a communication failure to impact policy and behavioural change.
Aarti Khosla, Director, Climate Trends, emphasized: “The central concern for air quality mitigation should be public health. Over the last 10 years, as air quality became more of a scientific issue and increasingly linked with aspects like climate change, it has somewhat moved away from its social dimension as a public health concern primarily. I think bringing it back to where it belongs is critical.”
Prof. Sagnik Dey, Chair Professor in Policy Studies, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, added: “We realized that we are conducting research, but often this science is not communicated to policymakers in the way it should be, and particularly not to citizens. That is where we partnered with Climate Trends, mainly to help us in using the science to create a strong health-centric narrative.”
Indoor Air Pollution Plays a Critical Yet Overlooked Role
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, highlighted a critical yet overlooked aspect: “One thing that is very critical but often overlooked is the role of indoor air pollution. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has gone a long way and has been an amazing change in terms of the ownership of LPG connections. Today, almost every household in India owns an LPG connection. But the fact remains that many families are still using biomass for cooking and sometimes for heating in the winter months. This significantly contributes to outdoor air pollution, apart from being a direct risk to women and children. So, there is a very specific gender equity issue with indoor air pollution, in addition to the fact that it contributes anywhere between 30 to 60 percent of ambient air pollution.”
Governance Reforms Are Essential for Progress
Dr. Swaminathan recommended institutional reforms: “The Health Minister and the Environment Minister should be requested to jointly chair an environmental health commission or a high-level task force. If it is chaired by these two ministers at the center, and if state health and environment ministers are also brought on board, then discussions can go beyond just air pollution to include other environmental health risks as well. At the moment, we have nothing like that.”
She further suggested: “My recommendation would be to think about creating an Environmental Health Regulatory Agency for India, one that looks at health and air pollution data, as well as other environmental health risks, and makes science-based recommendations and policies, with the authority to implement and enforce them.”
NCAP Targets Need Revision and Strengthening
Dr. Swaminathan stressed: “We need to revisit NCAP and revamp the target. It is very unfortunate that air quality has yet not made it to global forums. India should take the leadership role to address air quality at global forums because we are very well equipped and have cross border collaboration with neighbouring countries. Technology transfer could give us some solutions at a faster pace.”
Interdisciplinary Solutions Are Needed for This Wicked Problem
Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, described air pollution as “a visible, wicked problem—an interdisciplinary challenge—where we feel we have many of the solutions, but we are not yet able to make an impact. This is a socio-technical problem. The role of researchers is both to provide evidence and to communicate it effectively.”
Dr. Kalpana Balakrishnan, Dean-Research, Sri Ramachandra Institute Of Higher Education and Research, emphasized: “Scientists are excellent at generating evidence. But it takes decades. We could keep producing data for another 40 years. That should not, however, hold back the interventions. If standards, which are our fundamental regulatory mechanism, are based on scientific evidence, then we should trust them. We need to reduce exposures—that is national law, national legislation, and national history.”
National Coordination Is Essential for Success
Dr. Anand Krishnan, Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, called for nationally concerted research: “If we are truly addressing a national problem, we cannot depend on individual researchers to take up the cause. It is not the job of scientists to be activists. If it is a national problem, there must be a nationally concerted effort. Whether it is ICMR or another body, some agency has to take this up as a national issue, identify priority areas for research, fund them, and get them done.”
He also highlighted the communication challenge: “Within the scientific community, we have been focused on attribution for too long. We are not going to generate radically new data that changes attribution. It has already been proved, though only partly addressed. Still, the government, politicians, and other entities remain unconvinced. This is not a scientific failure—it is a communication failure.”
Local Action Can Drive National Change
Dr. Krishnan advocated for ground-level interventions: “We need to start at the local level and work upward. One of the simplest local priorities India should tackle is solid waste management. These are issues municipalities can address, without needing central intervention.”
He also stressed the need for critical mass: “People don’t see a clear way forward that benefits them directly. Even if they act, their exposure doesn’t change. We don’t really have a clear culture around this. As a result, even though everyone agrees that air pollution is a problem, action does not follow. We have not created the critical mass of people necessary for collective action.”
Winter Brings Opportunity for Real Change
As India enters the winter period with its characteristic spike in air pollution levels, Aarti Khosla expressed hope: “We are at the beginning of the winter period. There is going to be heightened coverage on air pollution. I hope this is also the moment to move beyond quick fixes and cosmetic changes, and instead talk about the real opportunities before us.”
The Health Benefit Assessment Dashboard, designed using Census 2011 district boundaries and IIT Delhi’s SAANS satellite data, represents a crucial step in translating scientific evidence into actionable public health insights. The dashboard establishes that the largest health co-benefits are concentrated in northern and eastern states, where high levels of air pollution and large populations create an especially urgent case for action. Yet even in states and union territories with lower baseline prevalence or smaller populations, meaningful health improvements are observed.
These findings underscore the urgent need to prioritize air quality interventions, as cleaner air not only improves the environment but also translates directly into measurable and widespread public health gains across India.
