HEALTH IMPACT OF OUTDOOR AIR POLLUTION IN NIGERIA: CURRENT KNOWLEDGE AND FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS

HEALTH IMPACT OF OUTDOOR AIR POLLUTION IN NIGERIA: CURRENT KNOWLEDGE AND FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS

ABSTRACT

The significance of air pollution as one of the contemporary issues and accelerating factors that propel climate change in both developed and developing countries cannot be overemphasized. The problem of air pollution has seemingly become intractable with the incessant failure of both global and local environmental policies purportedly emplaced to address its devastating trend, particularly in growing megacities of the world. The devastating effects of the phenomenon are more pronounced in megacities of developing countries than in developed ones. Lagos, as an industrialized, commercialized and an emerging megacity in Nigeria, has been subjected to several predictions of the negative impacts of changing climatic conditions partly caused by ubiquitous air pollution. Efforts at stemming the tide of the increasing challenges of air pollution worldwide has significantly been thwarted by inadequate funding, hence the need to review the literature on the environmental implications of growing air pollution, its contributions to climate change and its negative impacts on the lives and properties of teeming inhabitants of Lagos.