[Manuel_D]

15 years disparity in life expectancy exclusively attributed to air quality is not incredibly obvious. To put this in perspective, nationwide average disparity in life expectancy is 5 years between Black and white people. Triple that amount, exclusively attributed to air quality, is a substantial claim.

[olalonde]

Exactly. Even smoking doesn't shorten life expectancy by that much (it's 10 years).

[makeitdouble]

Smoking is voluntary, partly self-adjusting (willingly or not you'll reduce smoking as you get worse), composition is regulated and that habit only starts at a later stage in life.

None of that applies to PM2.5 kind of pollution.

[makeitdouble]

For an area that has well known air pollution issues it doesn't sound far-fetched.

Comparing to the national average helps put it into perspective but doesn't make sense as sanity check. Flynt could be a better data point.