Does pollution have to be over time to affect your health?

If you consume contaminated water, you will become sick or your body will accumulate toxins that will affect your body later. If you breathe contaminated air or dust-rich air, your lungs will be sad. If you live 2 summer months in Denver, Colordo (USA), you might be cancer due to cosmic radiation (Masters, G.M. and Ela, W.P. Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Science (3rd Edition, Pearson International Education), Prentice Hall, Inc. NJ. (2008)).

The risk is 1 out of one million. If you drink chlorinated water, there is a risk of death (8 out of one million) due to chloroform formation in your potable water (Masters, G.M. and Ela, W.P. Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Science (3rd Edition, Pearson International Education), Prentice Hall, Inc. NJ. (2008)). However, if you do not disinfect your water and consume it, there is a higher risk of becoming sick or worse.

Sooner or later environmental pollution will affect your health. Most important factors are that the concentration of pollutants (in air you breathe, in water you take a bath or you drink, in vegetables/fishes/meat/fruits... you consume) and the duration.