MedWire News: The average life expectancy in 51 US cities increased by almost 3 years over recent decades, and approximately 5 months of that increase came thanks to cleaner air, US researchers report.

“Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable,” said lead author C Arden Pope III (Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah).

“We find that we’re getting a substantial return on our investments in improving our air quality. Not only are we getting cleaner air that improves our environment, but it is improving our public health.”

The researchers matched data from 51 cities across the USA on changes in air pollution between around 1980 and 2000 and residents’ life expectancies during those years.

After accounting for other factors that could affect average life spans, such as changes in population, income, education, migration, demographics, and cigarette smoking, the researchers found that in cities that had previously been the most polluted and cleaned up the most, the cleaner air added approximately 10 months to the average resident’s life.

The team found that US citizens were living on average 2.72 years longer at the end of the 2-decade study period, with up to 5 months, or 15%, of that increase attributable to a reduction in air pollution, possibly as a result of reduced cardiovascular and respiratory disease mortality.

“There is an important positive message here that the efforts to reduce particulate air pollution concentrations in the USA over the past 20 years have led to substantial and measurable improvements in life expectancy,” said co-author Douglas Dockery (Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts).

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