Development of the "National Asbestos Profile" to Eliminate Asbestos-Related Diseases in 195 Countries.

Worldwide, 230,000+ people die annually from asbestos-related diseases (ARDs). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that countries develop a National Asbestos Profile (NAP) to eliminate ARDs. For 195 countries, we assessed the global status of NAPs (A: bona fide NAP, B: proxy NAP, C: relevant published information, D: no relevant information) by national income (HI: high, UMI: upper-middle, LMI: lower-middle, LI: low), asbestos bans (banned, no-ban) and public data availability. Fourteen (7% of 195) countries were category A (having a bona fide NAP), while 98, 51 and 32 countries were categories B, C and D, respectively. Of the 14 category-A countries, 8, 3 and 3 were LMI, UMI and HI, respectively. Development of a bona fide NAP showed no gradient by national income. The proportions of countries having a bona fide NAP were similar between asbestos-banned and no-ban countries. Public databases useful for developing NAPs contained data for most countries. Irrespective of the status of national income or asbestos ban, most countries have not developed a NAP despite having the potential. The global status of NAP is suboptimal. Country-level data on asbestos and ARDs in public databases can be better utilized to develop NAPs for globally eliminating ARDs.

Citation

Diana Arachi, Sugio Furuya, Annette David, Alexander Mangwiro, Odgerel Chimed-Ochir, Kenneth Lee, Peter Tighe, Jukka Takala, Tim Driscoll, Ken Takahashi. Development of the "National Asbestos Profile" to Eliminate Asbestos-Related Diseases in 195 Countries. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2021 Feb 12;18(4)

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PMID: 33673264

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