Exposure to outdoor air pollution

Description: Annual population-weighted average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the air, measured in micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³). Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, which can pose significant health risks.
Data source: SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Unit: µg/m³
Date range: 1998-2024
Last updated: 2026-04-22
Next expected update: 2027-04-22
Managed by: Tuna Acisu

Outdoor air pollution, specifically PM2.5, is a major environmental risk factor for health issues such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. It is estimated to contribute to millions of premature deaths globally each year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that annual average PM2.5 levels should be below 5 µg/m³ to minimize health impacts.
The population-weighted mean PM2.5 concentration reflects the average exposure of people in a region, giving more weight to areas where more people live. This can differ from the simple geographic mean, which averages PM2.5 levels across a region without considering population distribution.

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Frequently asked questions

How did Our World in Data process this data?

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We calculated regional averages based on the "Our World in Data" definition of regions and our population estimates.

Data sources

SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis – SatPM, Global Annual PM2.5 Concentration, country level

Retrieved on

April 22, 2026

Retrieved from

https://www.satpm.org/v5-gl-06

Citation

This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data.

Aaron van Donkelaar, Melanie S. Hammer, Liam Bindle, Michael Brauer, Jeffery R. Brook, Michael J. Garay, N. Christina Hsu, Olga V. Kalashnikova, Ralph A. Kahn, Colin Lee, Robert C. Levy, Alexei Lyapustin, Andrew M. Sayer and Randall V. Martin (2021). Monthly Global Estimates of Fine Particulate Matter and Their Uncertainty Environmental Science & Technology, 2021, doi:10.1021/acs.est.1c05309

How to cite

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Exposure to outdoor air pollution”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2022) - “Outdoor Air Pollution”. Data adapted from SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261102-112946/grapher/outdoor-air-pollution-exposure.html [online resource] (archived on November 2, 2026).

How to cite this data

If you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Exposure to outdoor air pollution” [dataset]. SatPM, Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis, “SatPM, Global Annual PM2.5 Concentration, country level v5-gl-06” [original data]. Retrieved November 2, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261102-112946/grapher/outdoor-air-pollution-exposure.html (archived on November 2, 2026).

All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately. This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.

All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

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