Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe: burden of disease status, 2025

This briefing provides the latest estimates of population health impacts caused by long-term exposure to fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. It is based on data up to the year 2023.

Key messages

While significant progress has been made to reduce air pollution, 95% of urban Europeans remain exposed to air pollutant concentrations above World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. 

Reducing air pollution to WHO guideline levels could have prevented 182,000 deaths attributable to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure, 63,000 to ozone (O3) exposure and 34,000 to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure in the EU in 2023.

For some diseases caused and/or aggravated by air pollution, such as asthma, the main impact is poorer health. For others, such as ischemic heart disease and lung cancer, it is premature death.

New evidence suggests that air pollution may also cause dementia. Dementia’s disease burden is estimated to be higher than that of other relevant diseases.

Eastern and south-eastern European countries suffer the most significant health impacts from air pollution due to high pollution levels.