A recent study revealed that microscopic air pollution, mostly generated by the combustion of fossil fuels, affects life expectancy by more than two years globally.
According to a report by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, if fine particulate matter levels across South Asia reached World Health Organization criteria, the typical individual would live five years longer.
The severe lung and heart illness caused by so-called PM2.5 pollution reduce life expectancy by eight years in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, home to 300 million people, and by a decade in the capital city of New Delhi.
PM2.5 pollution penetrates deep into the lungs and reaches the circulation, with a diameter of 2.5 microns or smaller, nearly the same as a human hair. It was declared a cancer-causing substance by the United Nations in 2013.
According to the WHO, the concentration of PM2.5 in the air should not exceed 15 micrograms per cubic metre in any 24-hour period, or 5 mcg/m3 on an annual basis.
The WHO strengthened these guidelines last year, the first revision since air quality guidance was established in 2005, in response to accumulating evidence of harmful health effects.
In the Air Quality Life Index report, lead researcher Crista Hasenkopf and colleagues stated, “Clean air pays back in additional years of life for individuals all over the world.” “Reducing global air pollution to WHO recommendations permanently would add 2.2 years to average life expectancy.”
Almost every inhabited region on the planet exceeds WHO limits, but not more so than Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan all exceed WHO guidelines by 15-fold, 10-fold, and nine-fold, respectively.
