Air pollution can reduce life expectancy by 3-5 years in some of the region's most polluted areas.
Source
World Bank — https://www.worldbank.org/en/brief/2025/12/09/air-quality-management-in-the-indo-gangetic-plains-and-himalayan-foothills. Verified in source set / retroactive normalization pending.
What it proves
Air pollution is a public-health and human-capital issue.
How to deploy: Use Air pollution can reduce life expectancy by 3-5 years in some of the region's most polluted areas. (Air pollution can reduce life expectancy by 3-5 years in some of the region's most polluted areas., 2025) to support the claim that Air pollution is a public-health and human-capital issue.
What it does not prove: This is a modelled counterfactual — years gained if pollution fell to the reference standard — not observed deaths, and the 3–5 year range applies to the region's worst-affected areas, not to the national average behind Pakistan's 67.8-year life expectancy. It also isolates air pollution from the water, nutrition and health-system deficits that shorten lives alongside it.
Memory hook: 3–5 years → air quality moves life expectancy more than most health budgets
Rebuts the claim: "Pakistan's health outcomes are limited by hospitals and doctors, so spending belongs in clinical care" — ambient air costs the most polluted populations years of life before any patient reaches a clinic.