The impact of Air Pollution on Public Health and Tourism in Kosovo

Abstract

One of the biggest problems of today is air pollution. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, air pollutants have continuously and rapidly increased their concentrations in the air, achieving dramatic results in modern life. Kosovo is no exception. Although there has been a decrease in air pollutants in recent years, their concentration in Kosovo is above the ЕU standards and the World Health Organization guidelines. The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of air pollution in Kosovo on deaths caused by respiratory diseases (since respiratory diseases are the primary, direct and most obvious consequence of polluted air). For this purpose, the paper uses the multiple regression method, which determines the impact of air pollution on the one hand (taking into account the concentrations of six air pollutants as independent variables: PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, CO and Ozone) and deaths due to respiratory diseases on the other hand (as a dependent variable). The analysis showed that there is a huge (almost ideal) direct proportional interdependence between air pollution in Kosovo and the number of deaths due to respiratory diseases, which is shown by the correlation coefficient of 0.995. The coefficient of determination of 0.990 shows that as many as 99% of deaths due to respiratory diseases in Kosovo are due to polluted air. Accordingly, air pollution in Kosovo is a significant predictor of the number of deaths due to respiratory diseases, which can also be seen from the significance level of this analysis (p) which is 0.03. Therefore, it is necessary to take a series of significant measures by both state authorities and industrial facilities, as well as by households, to reduce the concentration of pollutants in the air in order to ensure the protection of the health and life of people, other wildlife and the environment.