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People living in Delhi are losing over eight years of their lives due to toxic air. This means that if the air quality in the national capital was improved to meet the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), an average Delhi resident could live 8.2 years longer, new research by The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) has found.
The loss in life expectancy to high PM2.5 (particulate matter 2.5) was globally the highest in National Capital Territory (NCT) Delhi, according to the report titled, Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), that analysed air quality data of the year 2023.
Meanwhile, on average, an Indian resident could live 3.5 years longer if pollution levels were brought down.
Globally, if particulate pollution were permanently reduced to meet this guideline, an average person around the world would gain 1.9 years of life, adding 15.1 billion total life years to the global population.
In India, an average resident of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of North India could live five years longer if particulate concentrations met the WHO guideline of 5 microgram per cubic metre (µg/m³). The Northern Plains are India’s most polluted region.
Beyond the Northern Plains, the states of Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Jharkhand were the most polluted in the country, the research revealed. On average, people living in these states could live 3.7 years longer.
The findings are crucial from a public health perspective, especially at a time when the Indian government has not recognised any direct link between air pollution and mortality.
While particulate pollution remained the greater external threat to human life expectancy, Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel had told Parliament in July last year that there was no “conclusive data available in the country to establish a direct correlation of death/disease exclusively due to air pollution.”
The AQLI report released on August 28 said particulate pollution remained the greatest external threat to human life expectancy in 2023, with its impact comparable to smoking and surpassing other major health risks. Its toll on life expectancy is more than four times that of alcohol use, five times that of transport injuries or unsafe water, sanitation, and handwashing, and more than six times that of HIV/AIDS.
In India, the country with the highest health burden of pollution in South Asia, the particulate concentration in 2023 was 41 µg/m³—more than eight times the WHO guideline, and slightly higher than the country’s national ambient PM2.5 standard of 40 µg/m³.
In response to the air quality crisis, the government had launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019. The research found that this has led to an increase of six months in life expectancy for 445.5 million people living in districts with ‘non-attainment cities’, where pollution levels have already declined by 10.7 per cent compared to 2017 levels.
NCAP was launched with an aim to reduce particulate pollution levels from 2017 baselines by 20-30 per cent by 2024. In 2022, this target was revised upwards, with the government setting a more ambitious goal of achieving a 40 per cent reduction by 2026 in 131 non-attainment cities — urban areas that consistently fail to meet national air quality standards.
If this updated target was met, residents of these non-attainment cities could gain an average of two additional years of life compared to 2017 levels, the study found.
South Asia continued to have the most polluted air globally, with particulate pollution posing one of the greatest external threats to life expectancy across the region. In countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan — the most polluted in South Asia — the health impact of particulate pollution was stark. Its effect on life expectancy was over 1.5 times greater than that of childhood and maternal malnutrition, and more than eight times greater than the combined burden of unsafe water, sanitation, and poor hygiene.
Meanwhile, China, which had seen a steady decline in air pollution levels since launching its ‘war on pollution’ in 2014, experienced a 2.8 per cent increase in particulate pollution in 2023 compared to the previous year — marking a concerning reversal in its air quality progress.
The AQLI’s 2023 data revealed that global PM2.5 concentrations in 2023 were 1.5 per cent higher than in 2022 and nearly five times the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³.
Globally, the United States (US) and Canada experienced the highest rise in pollution, caused due to record-breaking wildfires which increased the particulate concentrations to rise to levels not seen since 2011 in the US and since 1998 in Canada.
Meanwhile, in Africa, while pollution declined slightly in its central and west African regions, residents in the most polluted parts were losing up to five years of life expectancy due to particulate pollution that exceeded the WHO guideline.
“In these highly-polluted regions—such as Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—air pollution takes a greater toll on life expectancy than well-known killers like HIV/AIDS, malaria and unsafe water,” said the report.
In Latin America, particulate concentrations reached the region’s highest level since 1998, when EPIC’s data record began. Bolivia, the most polluted country in the region, ranked among the top ten most polluted countries in the world for the first time since 2010.
Across the European Union, particulate concentrations were nearly six per cent lower than they were in 2022. While particulate concentrations in the region’s most polluted countries — Bulgaria, Poland, and Cyprus — have declined over time, an average individual in these countries could still gain 0.9, 0.8, and 0.7 years of life expectancy, respectively, if particulate levels were permanently reduced to meet the WHO guideline, the report said.