North China Pollution Shaves 5+ Years Off Life Expectancy

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.