ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MODELLING OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF GROUNDWATER ARSENIC ATTRIBUTABLE CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE (CVD) MORTALITY IN INDIA

Largely geogenic arsenic contamination of groundwater used as drinking water contributes to a massive global non-communicable disease burden. Mitigation of arsenic bearing drinking water supplies is an explicit objective of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6. After Bangladesh, India is, arguably, the country whose public health is most impacted by exposure to groundwater arsenic through increased risks of the development of internal and skin cancers, and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) [1]. Despite this there is a paucity of data on groundwater arsenic attributable CVD mortality in India. We summarise here our work to address that [2].

Using a novel pseudo-contouring approach, risk maps reveal high hazard groundwater arsenic in north and northeast India, particularly in Assam and West Bengal, consistent with previously well-known documented high hazard areas [3], as well as some in some further not previously identified. We estimate that between 58 and 64 million people are exposed to arsenic exceeding 10 μg/L in groundwater-derived drinking water in India. On an all-India basis, the population attributable fraction of groundwater arsenic-attributable CVD mortality was estimated to be between 0.26% and 0.56%, corresponding to annual avoidable premature CVD-related deaths attributable to chronic exposure to groundwater arsenic in India of between around 6500 and 13,000. Annual total hospitalization costs due to high groundwater arsenic-attributable CVD mortality were estimated to be USD 1.95–4.13 million in India. Based on the reported reduction in life of 12 [4] to 28 [5] years per death due to heart disease, we calculate value of statistical life (VSL) based annual costs to India of arsenic-attributable CVD mortality of between USD 750 million and USD 3400 million.

Acknowledgements: Newton Fund, NERC (UK) (NE/R003386/1) & DST (India) DST/TM/INDO-UK/2K17/55(C) & 55(G) for Indo-UK FAR-GANGA project (www.farganga.org), University of Manchester President’s Doctoral Scholarship to LX. This abstract summarises our previously published work [2].

References:

[1] Chen et al., 2011, Brit. Med. J. 342, d2431; [2] Wu et al., 2021, Water, 13, 2232; [3] Podgorski et al., 2020, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17, 7119; [4] Menon et al., 2017, Lancet Glob. Health 7, e1675; [5] Maniecka-Bryła et al., 2013, Pol. 71, 1065.