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North China Pollution Shaves 5+ Years Off Life Expectancy

China's air pollution toll, has cut life expectancy for the residents of that region by five and a half years.

Credible estimates as early as two decades ago have put the annual death toll from air pollution in China as high as 1 million lives lost.  The situation is most grave in the severely afflicted cities of the Northeast region.   There, the combustion of coal, mainly in electricity generation but also for heating, is now blamed for reducing life expectancy by five and a half years.  All totaled, Yuyu Chen, from Peking University (China), and colleagues cite an “arbitrary Chinese policy that greatly increases total suspended particulates (TSPs) air pollution” [for] “causing the 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy.

Yuyu Chen, Avraham Ebenstein, Michael Greenstone, Hongbin Li. “Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River policy.”  PNAS July 8, 2013.

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