Nature Magazine: Three million die prematurely due to air pollution, nearly half Chinese

It’s long been known that air pollution can cause premature death. On Wednesday September 16, 2015, the prestigious UK-based journal “Nature” magazine published an article approximating the number of people who die prematurely due to air pollution.

The study pointed out that worldwide annually more than three million people die prematurely due to air pollution. Of these 1.4 million are Chinese. If air pollution emissions remain the same, by 2050 this number will reach 6.6 million. Per capita rates are highest in the Western Pacific region, followed by the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia.

This study comes from the German Max Planck Institute of Chemistry and was conducted by Jos Lelieveld and his research team.