Study finds that India's polluted air is cutting 660 million lives short

India pollution
(Image credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

More than half of India's population may be facing a shortened life expectancy due to filthy air, a new study reported by The Associated Press says.

The findings, published on Saturday in the journal Economic & Political Weekly, used a previous study on China's air pollution, in which the authors determined that life expectancy dropped by three years for every 100 micrograms of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, recorded above safe levels. In India, the authors found that 660 million people were breathing in unsafe levels of PM2.5, and losing at least 3.2 years of their lives as a result.

"The extent of the problem is actually much larger than what we normally understand," Anant Sudarshan, one of the study's co-author's and the India director of the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago, said. "We think of it as an urban problem, but the rural dimension has been ignored."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Thirteen Indian cities now make the World Health Organization's list of the 20 most polluted, but India is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and people living in the countryside are affected by industrial plants, regular garbage burning, and the need for diesel to generate electricity.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.