India's air pollution is so bad it's reducing life expectancy by 3.2 years

China's struggles with smog and air pollution have gotten a lot of attention over the years.

But the air quality in India now appears to be even worse — with one new study finding that excess pollution is reducing the life expectancy of 660 million Indians by 3.2 years, on average.

India's pollution problem is worse than China's

Some background: The World Health Organization recently published data on pollution around the world, focusing on airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (known as PM2.5). These particles come from coal plants and vehicles, and, at high levels, have been linked to serious respiratory problems.

On this score, 13 of the world's 20 most-polluted cities are all in India. And India's cities have much higher PM2.5 levels than China's:

Comparing air pollution in India's cities vs. China's vs. Europe vs. US

Estimates of PM2.5 concentrations across India

Using the numbers from the China study, the authors could get a rough sense of how much harm this is doing — that's where they estimate that excess air pollution in these regions is reducing life expectancy by an average of 3.2 years.

Now, this is only an average: actual exposure can vary a lot from region to region and person to person. Policemen who are working in traffic all day get a higher exposure to air pollution. Wealthier families who can afford air purifiers in their homes get less. But the overall numbers are staggering.

The authors also find that air pollution levels in India's cities haven't shown any improvement in the last five years. If anything, things have gotten a bit worse.

Can India clean up its air pollution?

India and China, of course, didn't invent air pollution. Cities like London and Los Angeles also once had horrific smog and particulate problems. But as they got richer, they cleaned up — and there's every indication that developing countries will do the same. The question is when.

China, for its part, has already begun to crack down on its air pollution, through policies tolimit coal burning in cities and curtail vehicle use

.

So far, India has taken fewer steps in that direction. One reason for that is that India is still much, much poorer than China. (Among other things, India has 400 million people without electricity; China has virtually none.) So the country is still focusing heavily on economic growth — which often means expanding the use of fossil fuels.

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