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Delhi: Clean air will add 10 years to your life, study reveals

The AQLI showed that a drastic reduction in pollution across India and conforming to WHO's standards would lead to maximum gains in the top ten polluted districts —all in Uttar Pradesh

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If you feel like years of your life have been shorn off because of the toxic air you breathe, you are not wrong. On an average — were it not for the pollution and the country met the World Health Organization's (WHO) air quality standards — people in India would live an average of 4.3 years longer, a new study reveals. In Delhi, the toxic air quality has reduced the life expectancy of residents by over 10 years due to consistent exposure to particulate pollution, whereas in several districts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab, the reduction in life expectancy due to air pollution has been over six years.

The findings were part of the Air Quality-Life Index (AQLI) study by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), which also noted that globally, fossil fuel-driven particulate air pollution was cutting average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person.

The study gathered PM2.5 pollution data of each district in India using satellite data between 1998 and 2016. Atmospheric composition simulations helped translate it into levels of PM2.5 which were cross-validated and interpolated using available groud-based monitor data, the study said.

The AQLI showed that a drastic reduction in pollution across India and conforming to WHO's standards would lead to maximum gains in the top ten polluted districts —all in Uttar Pradesh.

"While people can stop smoking and take steps to protect themselves from diseases, there is little they can individually do to protect themselves from the air they breathe," said study co-autor Michael Greenstone, director, EPIC. "The AQLI tells citizens and policymakers how particulate pollution is affecting them and their communities and reveals the benefits of policies to reduce particulate pollution," he added.

According to the report, 25 per cent of particulate pollution comes from vehicles, household wood and coal burning accounts for 20 per cent, natural sources account for 18 per cent, while 15 per cent is from power plants and industry and rest from miscellaneous human activity.

The AQLI is based on of two studies, published in 2013 and 2017, co-authored by Greenstone that analysed the adverse impact of air pollution in China on life expectancy. Results of these studies were combined with hyper-localised, global particulate matter measurements to arrive at the impact of pollution. The earlier research studies had analysed almost a decade long data on pollution, respiratory diseases and mortality in China to arrive at a conclusion that heavy air pollution was cutting lifespans by almost 3.1 years in some of China's most polluted regions.

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