Air pollution affects life expectancy worse than smoking, terrorism: Study

Washington: The effect of pollution on life expectancy in India is worse than that of HIV/AIDS, cigarette smoking, and even terrorism, according to a study which found that Indians would live 4.3 years longer if the country met the WHO guidelines.

According to the new Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), developed by researchers at University of Chicago in the United States, particulate air pollution cuts global average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person.

The AQLI reveals that India and China, which make up 36 per cent of the world's population, account for 73 per cent of all years of life lost due to particulate pollution.

On average, people in India would live 4.3 years longer if the country met the WHO guideline -- expanding the average life expectancy at birth there from 69 to 73 years.

The AQLI establishes particulate pollution as the single greatest threat to human health globally, with its effect on life expectancy exceeding that of devastating communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, behavioural killers like cigarette smoking, and even war.

Critically, the AQLI reports these results in tangible terms that are relatable for most people.

"Around the world today, people are breathing air that represents a serious risk to their health. But the way this risk is communicated is very often opaque and confusing, translating air pollution concentrations into colors, like red, brown, orange and green," said Michael Greenstone, a professor at Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).

"My colleagues and I developed the AQLI, where the 'L' stands for 'life,' to address these shortcomings. It takes particulate air pollution concentrations and converts them into perhaps the most important metric that exists: life expectancy," he said.

The AQLI is based on a pair of studies that quantify the causal relationship between long-term human exposure to particulate pollution and life expectancy.

Seventy-five percent of the global population, or 5.5 billion people, live in areas where particulate pollution exceeds the WHO guideline.

In the US, about a third of the population lives in areas not in compliance with the WHO guideline. Those living in the country's most polluted counties could expect to live up to one year longer if pollution met the WHO guideline.

Globally, the AQLI reveals that particulate pollution reduces average life expectancy by 1.8 years, making it the greatest global threat to human health.