Yeah, Harvard was joined by University College London, as well as the universities of Leicester and Birmingham.

The researchers say that they believe 8.7 million people are dying annually from problems correlated with fossil fuels such as respiratory diseases.

A previous study in 2017 had the number far lower 4.2 million and it didn't differentiate between fossil fuel pollution and other air quality issues.

For example, the smoke from wildfires.

Dr Eloise Morris is one of the study's authors from University College London.

This is an extraordinary high estimate.

We will also sort of blown away by just how large the estimate was that we obtained.

But you know, our study certainly isn't in in isolation in finding a large impact on health due to exposure to air pollution.

There are studies that are with these statistical models that I mentioned also incorporating more and more information about adverse health outcomes associate with air pollution and tending towards a higher estimate of premature mortality.

Loss of eyesight, cognitive ability, um, dementia.

You know there's so many studies that it's, um the consensus is really that air pollution is worse for health than we originally thought.

To find their numbers, the researchers mapped out clusters of deaths around the world from those health problems commonly associated with air pollution.

That was compared with pollution modeling maps separating out specific types such as industrial factors, cars or dust to Seymour closely what people were breathing and where.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they say, the worst hit areas include parts of China, India, Europe and the northeastern United States.