A discussion on PM2.5 exposure data used in the published paper by Anwar et al. (2021)

This letter addresses a discussion in the article entitled “Emerging challenges of air pollution and particulate matter in China, India, and Pakistan and mitigating solutions” by Anwar et al. [2] published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. This article has utilized mean annual exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from 2010 to 2017 for
Pakistan, India, and China, provided by the World Bank .....

PM2.5 exposure will increase with the increase of PM2.5 concentrations, but (Fig. 3) from the World Bank PM2.5 exposure data used by Anwar et al. [2] shows a decreasing trend of  1.5 ± 0.28 μg/m3 yr 1 which conflicts with the PM2.5 concentrations from the CAMS and WHO database which are showing increasing trends of 0.64 ± 0.18 μg/m3 yr 1 and 1.23 ± 0.37 μg/m3 yr 1, respectively.