The State of Global Air 2025 report has revealed that about a third of deaths from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in Ghana are attributable to air pollution.

Data from the report, produced by the Health Effects Institute (HEI), in collaboration with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the NCD Alliance, also indicated that 33% of deaths from both lung cancer and neonatal outcomes were also caused by air pollution, while 39% of lives lost from Ischemic heart disease could be linked to contaminated air.

What is COPD?

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common lung disease that restricts airflow and causes breathing problems.

Emphysema, which is when your alveoli become damaged and enlarged, causing shortness of breath and chronic bronchitis, where your large airways become inflamed, narrowing your airways, creating lots of mucus and inducing a cough, are examples of COPD, but people who suffer from either often suffer symptoms of both.

COPD can trap bacteria in your lungs, leading to infections, and also prevent oxygen from getting into your body, causing complications like Pneumonia and respiratory failure.

Source: Health Effects Institute. 2025

A study published by Frontiers in Medicine and conducted by Emmanuel Mensah, Min Liu, Lingling Pan, Wei Lu, Susheng Zhou, Liqin Zhang, Yusheng Cheng, Shuoshuo Wei and Lei Yusheng Zha, found that “Ghana’s absolute COPD burden is increasing, driven by preventable risk factors such as household air pollution.”

The study found that from 1990 to 2021, “Ghana saw a 157% increase in COPD deaths (from 693 to 1,782), compared to a 49% global increase. Ghana’s age-standardised death rate (ASDR) declined by only 7%, far below the global reduction of 37%. COPD prevalence in Ghana tripled, rising from 0.1 to 0.3 million, while incidence increased by 215% and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) by 171%.”

32,500 deaths

Air pollution remains a significant threat to lives in Ghana, with 32,500 confirmed to have died in 2023, according to the The State of Global Air 2025 report.

The new figure is a nearly two percent rise from the previous year, which saw about 31,900 deaths in the country attributed to air pollution.

While the new numbers pale in comparison with those from China, which recorded 2,051,000 deaths in 2023 and India, whose air pollution-attributable deaths rose to 2,006,000 that year, the ratio of the deaths to the population in Ghana remains disproportionately high.

470,000 lives were lost from ozone, most of which were linked to COPD.